When you think of Disney and Main Street, you probably think of the original classic
Main Street USA in Disneyland, or perhaps the follow-up version in Orlando Florida.
However did you know that for just under a year, on a little known project, we almost
got a Disney Main Street in South Carolina?
In 1996 Disney was working on, of all things, a highway rest stop project with AAA, the
American Automobile Association.
Now this wasn’t Disney’s first time working with AAA.
Back in 1987 the two of them opened a rest stop along I-75 in Ocala, Florida, which was
just about and hour and a half north of Walt Disney World.
It had most things you’d expect in a rest stop, however this particular rest stop was
heavily Disney themed.
Their next collaboration, The Disney Stop, as it was going to be called, was planned
to be over ten times larger than the Ocala stop at 46 acres.
For comparison, that’s just under half the size of The Magic Kingdom.
Disney chose the small town of Hardeeville, South Carolina for its location.
Sitting off of exit 8 on I-95, The Disney Stop would be a five hour drive from Disney
World, and just a 20 mile drive to Hilton Head Island.
That second part was relevant because beyond just being a popular tourist destination in
South Carolina, it’s also where Disney was planning to build their next DVC resort.
Disney figured that this would be the perfect spot to grab the attention of both tourists heading
down I-95 to Florida as well as locals who might be heading to the island.
And with a $35 million dollar budget, Disney didn’t want just any old interstate rest stop.
The complex would feature a travel center, obviously, a hotel with 550 rooms, a combined
2,000 dining seats spread across multiple restaurants, an auto service center, a kennel
for travelers to keep and care for their pets, and between 30,000-40,000 square
feet of retail shopping space.
To top it all off, everything at The Disney Stop was going to be tied to a central Main
Street that was going to be themed to a 1950s midwestern American town.
So think less Main Street USA and more American Graffiti.
Disney themselves would own and operate very little of the center, however they’d overlook
the design in order to standardize the look and feel of all the buildings there.
They even began to reach out to prospective businesses to work with them on emulating
their older looks from the 50s and 60s.
If the business didn't exist back then they were asked to instead emulate the style of design
that was popular for the era.
Taking a slightly different approach for the advertising, the lead up along I-95 to The
Disney Stop would trade in the subtle and authentic theming of the 1950s for large and
bold Disney related props along the road, which were described to be “like those adorning
the All-Star Resorts” in Walt Disney World.
As for the big picture, if all of this worked out, the plan was for AAA and Disney to collaborate
on an entire chain of similar rest stops across the country.
Well, it didn’t work out.
When it was announced in January of 1996, Disney and AAA had an optimistic outlook.
They estimated that The Disney Stop would see as many as one and a half million guests every year.
They wanted to break ground on phase one in March, which would be comprised of the travel
center, auto service center, and a restaurant, with everything else coming later during a
second phase of construction.
With such a small start, they anticipated that the stop would be open by that same December.
There was some concern from Hardeeville in regards to the impact the project would have on their town.
After all, this was a small town of 1,500 residents, and they were faced with the prospect
of a new development that would, when completed, require over 1,400 permanent employees and
would see over a million guests a year.
While there weren’t going to be any rides or amusements, it was clear that Disney had
a history of showing up in quiet rural areas and, just by means of being there, transforming
them into not-so-quiet areas.
Often the promise of new jobs is a welcome one for any town or city, but the potential
change the residents of Hardeeville were facing could have been massive.
Now I wish this is where I could give you all an exciting or dramatic turn in the plot that
spelled doom for the project, but as is often the case with endeavours like these that never
come to fruition, the ending isn’t exciting or dramatic.
Through 1996, Disney struggled to finalize a contract with a developer who would be in
charge of building The Disney Stop.
The groundbreaking of March 1st would come and go with no ground broken.
By July there was still no movement on the project.
Both Disney and AAA spoke out to the press to confirm the troubles and reassure the public
that they still had interest in building a travel center there but… they never did.
After that the project just kind of fell into oblivion.
No formal cancellations.
No public delays.
No reassurances.
Nothing.
Who knows what would have happened if The Disney Stop worked out in the end.
Maybe we would all live just a short drive away from a little slice of the Disney experience.
Or maybe they’d all be long gone by now.
The Disney Stop is barely a blip when it comes to the history of the Walt Disney Company,
but it’s a blip that reminds us that for every idea we see made a reality, there are
many more that are fated to just being “what ifs”.