Strolling along the wooden planks of Disney’s BoardWalk Resort has always felt like stepping into a romanticized time capsule. Opened in 1996 and designed by famed architect Robert A.M. Stern, the deluxe resort and entertainment district on Crescent Lake was engineered to evoke the coastal nostalgia of mid-Atlantic seaside escapes like Atlantic City and Coney Island.
But if you visit the promenade in June 2026, the illusion of a sleepy turn-of-the-century village is obscured by the very modern reality of construction walls. Disney is currently undertaking a massive interior overhaul of several prominent storefronts that recently closed.
To understand where the BoardWalk is heading, it helps to look at where it was originally supposed to go. As recently revealed by legendary former Disney Imagineer Jim Shull, the tamer, relaxed BoardWalk we know today is a heavily diluted version of a chaotic, high-energy entertainment empire that almost was.
The Lost Blueprint: Jim Shull’s Kinetic Vision
When Walt Disney Imagineering originally mapped out the EPCOT Resort Area in the early 1990s, the BoardWalk wasn’t envisioned as a quiet backdrop for a deluxe hotel. According to historical design insights shared by Jim Shull, the original blue-sky concept was supposed to be a loud, mechanical, and hyper-kinetic entertainment monster built to compete directly with Universal Studios and downtown Orlando.
Shull revealed that the initial layouts featured:
- A True Mechanical Midway: Actual, active amusement park rides and carnival structures built directly onto the pier to bring raw kinetic energy to Crescent Lake.
- Massive Nightlife Footprints: An expanded matrix of high-capacity dance clubs, theaters, and themed dining to absorb the massive adult crowds that dominated the 1990s vacation scene.
- Deep Visual Scale: A design that felt less like a hotel facade and more like a sprawling, multi-layered coastal city.
Ultimately, these grand plans crashed into operational reality. The fatal flaw was a fundamental zoning conflict. Mixing high-decibel mechanical rides and late-night dance clubs directly underneath premium Disney Vacation Club (DVC) villas created an architectural nightmare. Noise complaints won the war, the rides were scrapped, and the BoardWalk was toned down into a peaceful, boutique promenade.
The 2026 Purge: Out with the 90s Kitsch
Thirty years later, the remnants of that scaled-back 1990s build are systematically being cleared away. Over the last few years, the BoardWalk has experienced a massive exodus of its classic anchors to make way for a modern aesthetic shift:
| Closed Classic Location | Modern 2026 Replacement Status |
|---|---|
| ESPN Club | Replaced by The Cake Bake Shop by Gwendolyn Rogers (facing rolling delays). |
| BoardWalk Bakery | Transformed into the streamlined, subway-tiled BoardWalk Deli. |
| Big River Grille & Brewing Works | Permanently closed; currently behind walls for a major mystery project. |
| Central Retail Strip | Core merchandise spaces completely hollowed out for an unannounced layout redesign. |
Inside the Mystery Codenames: Project Amazon
The current construction blitz is scheduled to run through late 2026. While Disney has kept the final details of these transformations under wraps, public government filings have revealed two telling project codenames tied to the permits: “Project Amazon”.
Industry insiders suggest “Project Amazon” (taking over the former Big River Grille footprint) will manifest as an upscale, high-capacity table-service restaurant tailored toward the wealthy conventioneers flooding the nearby Swan & Dolphin. “Project Bubbles” is widely expected to be an elegant, sophisticated cocktail and champagne lounge, finally giving the area a sleek, late-night adult space to replace the lost energy of the 90s.
By flattening the old, compartmentalized, prop-heavy storefronts of the late 20th century, Disney is leaning heavily into a sanitized, luxury-tier aesthetic. Clean lines, gold accents, and upscale dining are replacing the era of neon signs and over-designed thematic props. While purists may look at Jim Shull’s original carnival drawings and wonder what could have been, the 2026 wrecking crews prove that the BoardWalk’s future belongs firmly to the world of modern luxury hospitality.
