Places

Disney And Hong Kong Reach Agreement For New Theme Park. The Walt Disney Company and the Hong Kong SAR Government reached an agreement for a proposed Hong Kong Disneyland, a theme park development to be built as the anchor of a tourism center on Lantau Island. Overlooking the water at Penny's Bay, and on a main transit route from the new Hong Kong International Airport, the project will make Lantau Island a world-class tourist destination and take advantage of the location's easy access by rail, highway and ferry to attract guests to the Park. Currently in the conceptual design phase, Hong Kong Disneyland will bring together the best of rides, shows and attractions, and cutting-edge technology from Disney parks around the world to create a mix of new and traditional Disney entertainment experiences. The park will include areas already familiar to visitors of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, including Main Street USA, Sleeping Beauty's Castle, Fantasyland, Toontown, Adventureland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland. The proposed Disney Park will be the beginning of a larger tourism center envisioned by the Hong Kong government for North Lantau Island. The agreement is still subject to approval by the Hong Kong Executive Council and Legislative Council and by The Walt Disney Company Board of Directors. If final approval is reached, the park is expected to open in 2005.

Peanuts Creator Plans Museum For His Comic Strip. Charles M. Schulz, the 77-year-old creator of the Peanuts comic strip, secured final go-ahead to build a museum as a permanent home for Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the gang. Plans for the 17,000-square-foot Peanuts museum in Santa Rosa, California, a town 50 miles north of San Francisco, where Schulz continues to work in a studio he built twenty-five years ago, were unanimously approved at a city council meeting October 26, 1999. Schulz and his wife first suggested the idea of a museum several years ago as a means of preserving both the comic strip and items from the mountains of memorabilia Peanuts has generated since debuting in U.S. newspapers in 1950. The vote gave re-zoning approval for the 1.6 acre site, with construction expected to begin in early 2000. The two-story museum will feature an array of galleries filled with Schulz' work, as well as a 99-seat theater, an educational and research center, and offices. Peanuts currently appears in 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries, and has been the subject of plays, books, recordings and television movies. Charles Schulz, who has always worked on Peanuts alone, without any assistants, has said that the comic strip will end when he is no longer able to continue it.