- Nov 21, 2017
- 12
- 59
I'm going to try to remain civil in my rebuttal of this. The Pokemon stuff was a rumor on the IAPPA trade show floor. I heard it too, Josh. But some of us don't peddle in rumor and prefer to work in fact. Also that map he reported in June was tweeted by someone else and he ripped it for his blog without confirming it, which he admits.
It is possible for Universal to change the plans, but not likely. Their plans are still in the review phase with the city, meaning they haven't received approval to move forward with construction yet.
1) He says that more permits have to be filed to meet the current construction period on the NPDES permit. That's false. An NPDES permit construction period can be modified because construction is an imperfect process.
2) The city sent a list of deficient aspects of the plans to the city on 10/16/17 and are waiting for revisions from the contractors. The contractors are still well within the time frame to submit revisions to the plans. This is why construction hasn't started yet. When you see the city approve the permit, that's when we'll start seeing official announcements of closures.
3) Universal tore down Wet N Wild in less than 6 months.
4) Josh can't tell us about the details of the attractions in his alleged Pokemon land because no such anything exists at this point. He's reporting an IAPPA trade floor rumor without doing any real reporting.
5) Universal currently owes the city more than $20K in fees for review of these plans. It would take a lot to get them to completely change course and just blow $20K like that.
To his credit, though, there is some flux in the world of the Nintendo Land plans right now. Since these are early site work permits, the exact details of the attractions have yet to be filed for review. But every reason he gave for saying the plans I found are out of date is rebutted above. And they prove how little he knows about how construction works.
