EXPANSION of Disneyland would benefit Garden Grove’s hotel district (Disney image).

By Jim Tortolano/Orange County Tribune

The opportunities for growth in Garden Grove’s hotel district may be getting a boost from the Disneyland Resort’s plans for expansion of the iconic amusement park.

This week, resort officials have begun to schedule “community coffee” events at local parks in Anaheim to explain what their “Disneyland Forward” plans will involve. These plans were first announced in March 2021.

According to published reports, Disney wants to make new additions to “underdeveloped” areas around the park the company owns. Expansion would be near the Disney hotels west of Disneyland/California Adventure and in a parking lot to the east.

The “coffee” events will begin on May 20 at Ponderosa Park, 2100 S. Haster St.

While none of these plans are directly involved with Garden Grove, the dozen or so large hotels constructed along Harbor Boulevard from the Anaheim city limit south have benefitted from the tourist trade generated by the Disney parks, and the nearby Anaheim Convention Center.

At the State of the City event in Garden Grove recently, Mayor Steve Jones noted that “transient occupancy tax” from hotels had generated a record $27 million in revenue.

Three new hotels are on the drawing boards on Harbor in Garden Grove and a fourth is approaching completion at a site south of Garden Grove Boulevard.

Additionally, Garden Grove’s hotel area is allied with Anaheim’s under the name “Grove District” seeking to promote tourism to the region.