LAKE BUENA VISTA - Walt Disney World unveiled plans Thursday to develop 1,350 acres of its vast property, including a massive luxury resort in a partnership with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.

Disney also plans to build up to 5,000 value-priced hotel rooms on 450 acres around the first formal western gateway to the park, built to serve new highway access there.

Disney was vague about the size, pricing or cost of the two big changes in the entertainment giant's long-range plan for its 27,000 acres here.

The Four Seasons resort - likely to contain up to 1,000 rooms, an 18-hole golf course and single family homes and fractional ownership units on 900 acres east of the Magic Kingdom - would open in 2010.

It also will create the first opportunity for Disney fans with deep pockets to purchase luxury homes outright or by the season inside the park's boundaries. One option: Four Seasons room service will be available, for a price, in the private vacation manses.

By signing Four Seasons as its operating partner, Disney plants its foot firmly in a binge of hotels with five-star aspirations spreading across Florida. The trend hit Orlando a few years ago with the arrival of the 1,584-room Ritz Carlton/J.W. Marriott complex.

Disney, which made no mention of prospective hotel ratings Thursday, is no stranger to the business of indulgence and attentive service. Its parks routinely provide low-profile bodyguards for Hollywood star entourages and maintain posh condos for such potentates as the sultan of Brunei.

But Disney lost the stomach years ago for the staggering expense of keeping a fifth star at its own hotels, like the high-end Grand Floridian Resort.

Walt Disney World president Meg Crofton acknowledged the late arrival of Orlando, the nation's second biggest tourist city behind Las Vegas, to the world of luxury hotels.

"Orlando is now ranked No. 6 as a luxury destination," she said. "I think we can improve on that pretty quickly."

It's another sign that the luxe hotel building spree that put the Ritz, Four Seasons and Mandarin Oriental in Miami/Dade in recent years continues to spread north.

Western flank

The other strategic change centers on Disney developing access to its theme parks from the resort's western flank.

State Route 429, a new limited-access Western Beltway toll road that links Florida's Turnpike and Interstate 4 west of Disney World, opened in December.

Disney, which donated some of the right of way, plans to sell 450 acres around a formal western gateway to the park to hotel and retail developers. That's as much land as Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park.

Disney will begin clearing land for the project this fall. The emphasis is on hotels in the $70 to $100 nightly range. The hotels will surround a 300,000- to 500,000-square-foot retail complex.

The project, which will take up to a decade to complete, will be outside the park gate. A 3-mile road will lead to Disney's Coronado Springs Boulevard.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com">href="mailto:albright@sptimes.com" mce_href="mailto:albright@sptimes.com">albright@sptimes.com or 727893-8252.

Disney World: How big?

The world's largest theme park resort near Orlando is also the biggest single-site employer in the United States. Here's a handle on what that means.

Sheer size: 27,000 acres, a little smaller than St.Petersburg.

Unbuilt: Walt Disney committed that 7,500 acres of the original park will never be developed. Successors added an 8,500-acre conservation area south of I-4 that the Nature Conservancy runs as a lab for land restoration.

Built: Four theme parks, two water parks, Wide World of Sports complex, two nightlife districts, 32 hotels with 24,000 rooms or time-sharing units, 409 cabins and 800 camp sites.

People

Employees: 60,000 full and part-time

Average tenure: 8 years

Non-Disney employees who work on site: 15,000

Daily visitors: 125,000

People on site daily: 200,000

Transportation: 260 buses and 12 tram or monorail systems

Annual payroll: $1.3-billion

Plus benefits: $700-million

Skills: 3,000 job classifications range from 1,400 high-tech jobs to 3,500 entertainers.

Taxes

$87-million in property taxes to Orange and Osceola counties, $390-million in state sales and utility taxes paid or collected by Disney. $56-million more in property tax to a government entity controlled by Disney that pays for the theme park's infrastructure.

Source: Walt Disney Co.