- Val d'Europe
Val d'Europe (lit. Valley of Europe) is a part of the
new town known asMarne-la-Vallée . The final area of the district is currently in development. It is located around 35 km to the east of Paris, nearDisneyland Resort Paris . Val d'Europe was built in conjunction with theWalt Disney Company , who wished to create a town near Disneyland.Description & history
Val d'Europe is made up of five communities, which have grouped together to form a town council. The five districts are:
*
Bailly-Romainvilliers
*Chessy
*Coupvray
*Magny-le-Hongre
*SerrisThe area is primarily given over to Parc Disneyland, as per the contract between the government and the Walt Disney Company. One of the terms was that Disneyland immediately got 19.40 km² of land to build the Disney Village.
Euro Disney SCA is the only private company within France that has had such a large say in the development of an urban area of this scale. The government was represented by an EPA (governmental development company). Disney also developed thenew town ofMarne-la-Vallée .The building work started in
1987 , afterJacques Chirac (then French Prime Minister) and Disney signed the contract. Val d'Europe was to be opened along with Disneyland Paris and its associated hotels in1992 . The villages ofBailly-Romainvilliers ,Magny-le-Hongre and Serris were to be made into housing estates for the employees.It was not until the start of
1998 that Val d'Europe saw the opening of its shopping centre, which included a hypermarket and boutiques. However, the garden centre (Delbard) was opened in2004 in a building to the south of the shopping centre.As of
2005 , Val d'Europe has a population of 19,700 people, but this is expected to increase to 40,000 people and 60,000 employees. 19.43 out of 30.00 km² is currently given over to development by Disney.Euro Disney SCA has spent €5,000 million ($5,953,266,855/£3,420,806,667), compared to €500 million ($595,326,686 /£342,080,667) from the French government.The architectural style takes inspiration from the "neo-traditional" style of Haussmann, who designed some of the buildings seen in western Paris. The town was designed based upon
New Urbanism , a design philosophy of the 1940s which is frequently used in theUnited States . Disney had previously created a New Urbanist city in Florida, known as Celebration.The shopping centre
There is a large
Auchan hypermarket, 130 shops and a food court known as "Les Terrasses." As well as aSea Life aquarium.External links
* [http://www.valeurope-san.fr/ SAN Val d'Europe official site]
* [http://www.valdeurope.com/ Val d'Europe official site]
* [http://www.valdeurope.fr/ Val d'Europe Shopping Areas]
* [http://corporate.disneylandparis.com/CORP/EN/Neutral/Images/uk-2008-06-04-val-d-europe-award-for-excellence.pdf Val d'Europe Wins Award For Excellence]
* [http://www.sealifeeurope.com/ Aquarium Sea Life official site]
* [http://www.valdeurope.fr/files/valdeurope.fr/votrecentre/plandesmagasins/VDE_Plan_BD.pdf Centre Commercial map]
* [http://www.eurodisney.com/ Euro Disney SCA official site]
* [http://www.lavalleevillage.com/lavallee/home.asp?lan=en La Vallée Village official site]
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