Racing against an opening day deadline of Oct. 1, 1982, dozen general contractors are scrambling to convert 600 acres of Florida wetland into a futuristic landscape that will realize the late Walt Disney's most eloquent - and most costly-dream.
The legendary Disney conceived the $800-million EPCOT Center (short for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) as a "showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of the American people.'
He saw it as a never-to-be-completed meeting place where innovators in industry, science and the arts could exchange ideas, and where visitors could preview advanced technologies and be entertained in the process.
As developed by Glendale, Calif.-based WED Enterprises, the "imagineering" arm of the Disney organization, EPCOT Center promises to be close to Disney's dream.
Its pavilions will demonstrate the development and potential of almost every factor affecting modern life: energy, transportation, land, technology, and the mind-imagination. The theme structure will be a 180-ft-high sphere, Spaceship Earth. A pavilion called The Living Seas is scheduled to open in 1984, and others on outer space and life and health are under consideration.
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