The landscape of Disney’s Hollywood Studios is being fundamentally rewritten. As part of Walt Disney World's massive multi-year expansion, the section of the park formerly known as Muppets Courtyard and Grand Avenue is morphing into Monstropolis—the vibrant, laughter-powered city from Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. While construction walls have hidden the ground-level chaos for months, recent milestones show that the project has reached a point of no return.
On-the-ground updates reveal that an iconic Hollywood Studios dining landmark has been completely hollowed out to make way for a highly anticipated Pixar restaurant. Simultaneously, jaw-dropping new aerial photography from legendary theme park tracker bioreconstruct reveals that the land’s signature E-ticket attraction is officially going vertical.
Ripped Open: Mama Melrose Transformed Into Harryhausen’s
For over 30 years, Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano was a fan-favorite hideaway for classic Italian comfort food. That era officially ended when the restaurant closed permanently in May 2025. Now, the building is undergoing a radical structural evolution to become Harryhausen’s Restaurant, the land's premier table-service dining location.
The transformation is far more than skin-deep. The entire front face of the right side of the building has been completely torn open, leaving the interior entirely exposed to the elements. Guests looking past the trees of Grand Avenue can see straight through the structural skeleton, exposing heavy steel columns, massive HVAC ductwork, internal piping, and conduit runs.
In a bittersweet nod to the past, a portion of Mama Melrose’s iconic Mona Lisa mural is still visible on the remaining pink exterior sidewall, sitting just below temporary roofline safety railings.
Directly adjacent to the exposed interior, the main face of the original building has been completely wrapped in heavy plastic weather sheeting and secured with bright red construction tape. The outlines of the original arched windows remain visible beneath the plastic, indicating that Imagineers are keeping the core structural footprint while entirely retheming the exterior into the industrial, monster-scaled architecture of Monstropolis.
Going Vertical: The Monsters, Inc. Door Vault Coaster
While the ground-level destruction of Mama Melrose is turning heads, aerial photography from bioreconstruct on X reveals massive vertical milestones for the land's crown jewel: the Monsters, Inc. Door Vault Coaster.
Taking over a massive plot of land that previously served as a backstage parking lot, the coaster is rapidly becoming an absolute powerhouse of an attraction. The latest bird's-eye views reveal several major milestones:
- Foundation and Rebar Grid: Crews have successfully poured a massive, multi-layered concrete foundation pad across the entire footprint of the ride.
- The Second Crane Arrives: A second massive industrial crane has officially arrived on site, joining the existing tower cranes to accelerate the hoisting of heavy structural steel frameworks.
- Track Supports Installed: Rising directly from the concrete foundation are the first vertical steel support columns for the roller coaster track, easily identifiable by their distinct black and light-blue paint.
- Station Framing: Near a sandy staging area, concrete block walls wrapped in heavy scaffolding and wooden forms are taking shape, mapping out the early layout for the ride's load and unload station.
When completed, this attraction will hold the title of the largest attraction show building at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, eclipsing even Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. It will also make history as the first-ever suspended roller coaster at any Disney theme park, suspended underneath the track to perfectly mimic the sensation of swinging through the movie’s multi-million dollar storage facility.
Stripped to the Studs
The demolition extends across the entire former Muppets Courtyard. Following the closure of Muppet*Vision 3D and PizzeRizzo in June 2025, the secondary buildings have been completely gutted.
Aerial views show these naked structures wrapped in protective tarps to shield the exposed wood and steel frames from the Florida weather. The iconic purple gutters and classic clock faces have been completely stripped from the former Muppet*Vision 3D theater building, which is being heavily modified into The Glob Theater, a new show venue anchoring the inner city streets.
With steel actively climbing into the sky and classic landmarks completely hollowed out, the transition from the real world to the monster world is moving at a breakneck pace. Disney has yet to announce a formal opening date, but the visible vertical progress promises that Monstropolis is rapidly becoming a physical reality.
