Didn’t they say Avatar was still in early development so it seems they aren’t very far along in the design process.
I think people forget how
dry WDI was during the Chapek CEO years. There was very little in development at the time with no master plan in place since nothing was getting approved. There was no indication from corporate leadership that the parks were going to be "turbocharged" at the time. Disney+ was the focus, and the future of Disney. Very little, if anything, was in development.
The D23 parks panel in 2022 was primarily blue sky because there were no commitments. There's a reason why those "beyond thunder" and initial Dinoland concepts were vague... nothing was decided on yet. It wasn't until Iger came back later that year when the parks division got the greenlight to go.
From late 2022 (when Iger returned) to early 2026, a 3 year turnaround time for design & development is not the worst timeline. I wish they could move faster, but it's not the worse we've seen from Disney lol
I'm just extremely cautious about takes like this. We don't even know if we're getting a proper land with decent vistas like Animal Kingdom. While I don't think James Cameron will allow them to really skimp on the scenic quality, I genuinely still struggle to see how this will all fit together at the end of the day without taking the enclosed Super Mario/Donkey Kong approach at Universal, which I don't think would be as effective for this project.
But, as always, I would love to be wrong about everything...
There's a reason to be cautious with Disney's construction builds... but they do build fast when they want to. Phase 1 of New Fantasyland took 3 years, Star Wars Land took ~3.2 years, Cars Land took 3.6 years. Starting construction in 2026 aligns with a 2029 opening (I can be wrong of course).
Regarding "scope" of the project, if the land sticks between the existing Hollywood area and monorail beam, they have about ~165 feet to play with. When you make that turn into Pandora at DAK where you first see the floating mountains, the distance is about ~200 ft., so they definitely have a lot of room to play with.
Flight of Passage's mountain range façade is roughly 350 ft. from Na'vi to exit ramps, from the old Muppet*Vision theater to Stage 12, you have a little over 310 ft. in space... there's definitely enough room here. You can fit New Orleans Square in this area.
While DCA's might not get floating mountains at the scale of DAK, it might get rockwork/theming all around the perimeter of the land which DAK doesn't.