Universal Orlando Resort Expansion (Part 1)

[Andysol]

Another sobering thought that just hit me- this is going to completely change the resort. Obviously the size, but I mean the “feel”.

Currently, the thing a ton of us enjoy and prefer about universal is the close proximity to everything, walking distance, boat ride to park, etc. It’s reminiscent of Disneyland and with Express passes, it truly makes it a relaxing experience.

If/when they go to 3/4 parks and 2 water parks- and multiple locations, it competes with Disney more than ever, Which they clearly want. But with the good, comes the bad. Proximity, ease, and relaxation are likely out the window as it moves closer to Disneyworld-like operations.

The quant feeling of the resort will be gone, and the change will be hard.
Still though, bring it on!

 

[zg44]

Personally, I hope they don't try to do a 4th dry park as that caused so many issues when WDW did it.

I know there're a lot of people in these threads who've mentioned concerns about a potential 4th dry park; here's how I'd respond: it's probably going to be a placeholder in Universal's master plan based on everything else at the 2nd resort (and 1st resort - avoiding self-cannibalization will be extremely important at the start) hitting aggressive benchmarks for success.

What I mean by that is: here's the list of absolute basics that a 2nd resort will have:
1 dry theme park, 1 water park, 1 CityWalk, and somewhere around 7,500-10,000 hotel rooms. I think we can all agree that that's what a "minimum 2nd resort" looks like in 2017.

Those 4 items are going to appear on any list of what would likely appear; of course, how large the dry theme park will be is extremely important (a 125 acre main park is different from a 175 acre main park). And there will obviously be a transportation hub or something to handle transporting guests among the 3 parks.

But in terms of overall planning; there would likely be a master plan somewhere among the top Universal execs for a 3 phase rollout of the overall 2nd resort:
Phase 1: 1 dry park + CityWalk + 3 hotels and the transportation hub/system around 2023 (maybe the 2 hotels on Universal Blvd. closest to the 1st resort are finished as early as 12 months in advance)
Phase 2: 1 water park + 2-3 hotels on a rolling basis after 2023 (probably somewhere on a 3-5 year time frame after 2023)
Phase 3: 1 dry park + more hotels after 2030 as long as everything else is hitting benchmarks

What I'd say is; you create your master plan assuming everything will go right and that you'll build all 3 phases out..., but in reality, only Phases 1 and 2 are confirmed beforehand. Phase 3 only happens if the 3 dry parks (USF+IoA+3rd) are all hitting 10m attendance levels easily and the 2 water parks are clearing 1.5 million and you have the IPs and plans in place to make sure your 4th dry park isn't a straggler and can stand as an equal to the rest.

Now I don't know how you allocate Phase 3's land; maybe they have enough land after they settle with Stan Thomas or maybe they assume they'll purchase Lockheed Martin's plant before you build Phase 3 and design a layout assuming that 2nd CityWalk can connect to Lockheed Martin's plant later, etc.

 

[shiekra38]

Another sobering thought that just hit me- this is going to completely change the resort. Obviously the size, but I mean the “feel”.

Currently, the thing a ton of us enjoy and prefer about universal is the close proximity to everything, walking distance, boat ride to park, etc. It’s reminiscent of Disneyland and with Express passes, it truly makes it a relaxing experience.

If/when they go to 3/4 parks and 2 water parks- and multiple locations, it competes with Disney more than ever, Which they clearly want. But with the good, comes the bad. Proximity, ease, and relaxation are likely out the window as it moves closer to Disneyworld-like operations.

The quant feeling of the resort will be gone, and the change will be hard.
Still though, bring it on!

I almost wish they wouldn't have gotten the Lockheed Land and would have gotten the land across from them (where the Doubletree is)...It will be interesting to see how this changes the resort...I'm sure the tram ride will feel short though

 

[quinnmac000]

I'm gonna say the first dry park will probably be the size of Epcot (~300 acres). This is going to be Universal's flagship park. This park also will be the one park for convention goes to hit up during the night after a day on the town with the resorts being right across the road.

If there is a second dry park, it will be small. I'm basing this off Disney and how no other park has made the same amount of attendance as Magic Kingdom yet they still have to spread costs amongst the four parks for renovations and upgrades that sometimes don't pay off and increase revenue.

In terms of a second water park, I think we will not know until there is more knowledge of how VB does next year.

I think however we will see the most intense and diverse entertainment complex in the country with the new Worldwalk to ensure people stay on the resort instead of I-drive as well as entertain the convention goers.

 

[shiekra38]

I'm gonna say the first dry park will probably be the size of Epcot (~300 acres). This is going to be Universal's flagship park. This park also will be the one park for convention goes to hit up during the night after a day on the town with the resorts being right across the road.

If there is a second dry park, it will be small. I'm basing this off Disney and how no other park has made the same amount of attendance as Magic Kingdom yet they still have to spread costs amongst the four parks for renovations and upgrades that sometimes don't pay off and increase revenue.

In terms of a second water park, I think we will not know until there is more knowledge of how VB does next year.

I think however we will see the most intense and diverse entertainment complex in the country with the new Worldwalk to ensure people stay on the resort instead of I-drive as well as entertain the convention goers.

I'm expecting a big park, smaller water park, and a Citywalk...At that point they will continue to build up what they have...

 

[GoUCFKnights]

Another sobering thought that just hit me- this is going to completely change the resort. Obviously the size, but I mean the “feel”.

Currently, the thing a ton of us enjoy and prefer about universal is the close proximity to everything, walking distance, boat ride to park, etc. It’s reminiscent of Disneyland and with Express passes, it truly makes it a relaxing experience.

If/when they go to 3/4 parks and 2 water parks- and multiple locations, it competes with Disney more than ever, Which they clearly want. But with the good, comes the bad. Proximity, ease, and relaxation are likely out the window as it moves closer to Disneyworld-like operations.

The quant feeling of the resort will be gone, and the change will be hard.
Still though, bring it on!

Well, the north campus will remain very walkable for sure, and if they build the south side the same way, it won't need to be complicated... there could just be 2 arrival destinations, citywalk with access to studios and IOA and citywalk 2.0 with access to dry park 3 and 4. Transport from hotels just have a north route and a south route, or just a route to citywalk which has the transportation between the north campus and south campus. With 2 destinations with walkable parks, the transport is far, far simpler than Disney World which is spread out among 27,000 acres, even if Universal acquires all the possibilities being discussed, would likely be less than 2,000 acres, so likely 1/10 the size.

 

[Mad Dog]

I would guess a larger Citi Walk type area due to proximity to the Convention Center. Many convention visitors often only have a few available hours outside of business meetings and thus are more apt to visit a no admission restaurant/ bar/entertainment complex than a theme park for most of their business convention. They're probably lucky to get a half or full day to spend in the theme parks themselves.

 

[AlexanderMBush]

I would guess a larger Citi Walk type area due to proximity to the Convention Center. Many convention visitors often only have a few available hours outside of business meetings and thus are more apt to visit a no admission restaurant/ bar/entertainment complex than a theme park for most of their business convention. They're probably lucky to get a half or full day to spend in the theme parks themselves.

As a honest thought, I have to wonder if Universal may have convention space for the hotels down there, or if they'll let the OCCC shine more for that.

 

[quinnmac000]

As a honest thought, I have to wonder if Universal may have convention space for the hotels down there, or if they'll let the OCCC shine more for that.

All they need is large sized ball rooms and meeting spaces more so than convention space. That way they can do after convention events at the hotels.

I would guess a larger Citi Walk type area due to proximity to the Convention Center. Many convention visitors often only have a few available hours outside of business meetings and thus are more apt to visit a no admission restaurant/ bar/entertainment complex than a theme park for most of their business convention. They're probably lucky to get a half or full day to spend in the theme parks themselves.

Most conventions give discount/free tickets to the parks to convention goers as well as rent out the parks for events.

 

[Mad Dog]

All they need is large sized ball rooms and meeting spaces more so than convention space. That way they can do after convention events at the hotels.



Most conventions give discount/free tickets to the parks to convention goers as well as rent out the parks for events.

Yes, they've done that with quite a few on site hotel, Portofino, conventions when we've been there. Sometimes they'll have a late afternoon or evening party on the Piazza and then water taxi them to the parks for a few hours. Bottom line though, is that available time for visiting parks is limited. Business comes first, and meetings are often long, and the recreation time is somewhat limited.

 

[Happytycho]

Now I don't know how you allocate Phase 3's land; maybe they have enough land after they settle with Stan Thomas or maybe they assume they'll purchase Lockheed Martin's plant before you build Phase 3 and design a layout assuming that 2nd CityWalk can connect to Lockheed Martin's plant later, etc.

I think they likely have enough without Lockheed Martin's land for three gates(2 dry, 1 water) and hotels as long as they don't do this:

I'm gonna say the first dry park will probably be the size of Epcot (~300 acres).

I'm not sure Epcot is actually 300 acres, but I don't see any way they dedicate 300 acres to one park, flagship or not. They have less than 600, and a bunch of it is split up in small sections which are hard to use, so 300 acres for a dry park plus 100 acres for parking and a citywalk would be almost all the land they have. I expect something more along the lines of 150 acres for the first dry park, 50 for the water park, 100 for the second dry park.

 

[quinnmac000]

I think they likely have enough without Lockheed Martin's land for three gates(2 dry, 1 water) and hotels as long as they don't do this:

I'm not sure Epcot is actually 300 acres, but I don't see any way they dedicate 300 acres to one park, flagship or not. They have less than 600, and a bunch of it is split up in small sections which are hard to use, so 300 acres for a dry park plus 100 acres for parking and a citywalk would be almost all the land they have. I expect something more along the lines of 150 acres for the first dry park, 50 for the water park, 100 for the second dry park.

Epcot is 121 hectacres which translates to 298 acres. Animal Kingdom is around 500 acres due to all the backstage areas.

The main parcel of 340 acres is connected to their new 110 acres which makes that entire main land parcel 450 acres which you could easily build a 20 acre parking garage, a 50 acre water park, a 50 acre city walk, and a 300 acre park which included backstage space and still have 35 acres left over not including the rest of the land parcels which could also easily be used as resorts as they range from 3-20 acres.

Mind you on a slow day, IOA and USF are both half day parks which is partly due to the fact they are tiny compared to the other Disney parks. They need a park with way more capacity than two parks that can be done in half days. They need a true full day park which literally no matter what requires a day to do all.

 

[paintervision]

I don’t want to see Universal with the same pitfalls that WDW experienced with opening so much in the 20-years betweeen 1980 and 2000...only to coast through the 2000’s with comparatively little investment. Three dry parks, two water parks, and a boutique park (I’m still sticking with a Ferrari World concept) might prevent that.

Guests who do weekend visits to the major parks could see most of it all without picking and choosing which one to “skip”or “do next time” (happens a lot with the Disney parks), and you’d have enough to do if a family chooses to spend a week with you (not quite enough to fill a week with UO at present). And hopefully the parks would see major investment, so repeat visitors wouldn’t just be park-hopping to see the new stuff (common guest behavior at WDW which results in the MK gettting mid-afternoon turnstile clicks).

 

[Frank Drackman]

Real Estate speculators like Stan Thomas,on a whole are a pretty motley crew. Flim flams , con jobs, bankruptcies, non payment of bills & services are endemic to real estate speculators. Generally they're using other peoples money, bank loans, leverage, fake or manipulated appraisals to generate funds in hopes of making a big score. No tears shed for those developers when they go under.

Stan? Sounds like Donald! Guess that is how those businesses run....

 

[bluetiedye]

Apologies if somebody already posted it, but with the news of Universal's land buy, this comment from Loews Hotels' CEO that I read yesterday stood out:

“Our partnership with Universal began almost 20 years ago with a joint venture in the first three hotels on the theme park campus,” he said. “Today, Loews Hotels in partnership with Universal has five hotels and 5,600 rooms in Orlando, and we’ll open our sixth property in the summer of 2018, the 600-room Aventura Hotel, and there’s more to come. In the next several weeks, the partnership plans to announce a project that will be our largest investment so far in Orlando in terms of both rooms and dollars. So, stay tuned.”

Source: Loews Hotels Is Taking a Contrarian Approach With Its Asset-Heavy Strategy – Skift

 

[zg44]

Another sobering thought that just hit me- this is going to completely change the resort. Obviously the size, but I mean the “feel”.

Currently, the thing a ton of us enjoy and prefer about universal is the close proximity to everything, walking distance, boat ride to park, etc. It’s reminiscent of Disneyland and with Express passes, it truly makes it a relaxing experience.

If/when they go to 3/4 parks and 2 water parks- and multiple locations, it competes with Disney more than ever, Which they clearly want. But with the good, comes the bad. Proximity, ease, and relaxation are likely out the window as it moves closer to Disneyworld-like operations.

The quant feeling of the resort will be gone, and the change will be hard.
Still though, bring it on!

Yeah, there's really two pivots for Universal Orlando, and you capture the second one well. Pre-Harry Potter, Universal always had that underdog feel: being a fan of the parks back then was similar to liking the Xbox; you knew most of your friends had Playstation 2 but you liked the feel of it being different. After Harry Potter, it still maintained that enclosed, college campus kind of atmosphere even though the underdog feel was gone because attendance had soared and it was no longer like an undiscovered gem.

Once the 2nd resort starts to open and Universal really becomes a "week-long" vacation destination moving millions of people up and down Universal Blvd. (still TBD how of course), things will definitely feel different again and the enclosed atmosphere will be punctured forever. Of course, there will probably still be 0.5-2 day visitors who will only stay at one resort's properties, but many vacationers will be choosing more comprehensive stays; that's just the nature of the beast when you have as much to choose from as a 2nd resort will add.

Still, this is the most exciting time in Universal's history given all the potential, so it'll be interesting to see how everything shakes out.

I think they likely have enough without Lockheed Martin's land for three gates(2 dry, 1 water) and hotels as long as they don't do this:

I'm not sure Epcot is actually 300 acres, but I don't see any way they dedicate 300 acres to one park, flagship or not. They have less than 600, and a bunch of it is split up in small sections which are hard to use, so 300 acres for a dry park plus 100 acres for parking and a citywalk would be almost all the land they have. I expect something more along the lines of 150 acres for the first dry park, 50 for the water park, 100 for the second dry park.

Yeah, if they go for a "mega-park" to be the anchor, then I think they'll end up having to design the overall resort in such a way that the Lockheed land would become a natural 2nd dry gate down the road in a multi-decade time frame (by that I mean just leaving things open for expansion in the Lockheed direction). It really all depends on whether they can achieve or want a 3 park master plan without the Lockheed land as you mention.

Apologies if somebody already posted it, but with the news of Universal's land buy, this comment from Loews Hotels' CEO that I read yesterday stood out:



Source: Loews Hotels Is Taking a Contrarian Approach With Its Asset-Heavy Strategy – Skift

That should be the WnW parcel conversion to 4,000 room hotels announcement; not sure they'd be announcing anything for the 2nd resort at this point, we're probably still years away from that.

 

[Andysol]

Apologies if somebody already posted it, but with the news of Universal's land buy, this comment from Loews Hotels' CEO that I read yesterday stood out:



Source: Loews Hotels Is Taking a Contrarian Approach With Its Asset-Heavy Strategy – Skift

Definitely WnW. Can’t wait to hear what they do with it. They’ve been pretty tight-lipped as rumors haven’t fully locked anything down yet. So announcement “in a few weeks” means we should hopefully be finding out a few days beforehand.

I’ll be curious if they go bus only for now as things are in limbo at park 3- although it likely won’t be by announcement time. Hopefully the transportation system is announced.

 

[AlexanderMBush]

Apologies if somebody already posted it, but with the news of Universal's land buy, this comment from Loews Hotels' CEO that I read yesterday stood out:



Source: Loews Hotels Is Taking a Contrarian Approach With Its Asset-Heavy Strategy – Skift

Yeah, that seems more DnT than I would think for anything down by the OCCC.

 

[Scott W.]

Definitely WnW. Can’t wait to hear what they do with it. They’ve been pretty tight-lipped as rumors haven’t fully locked anything down yet. So announcement “in a few weeks” means we should hopefully be finding out a few days beforehand.

I’ll be curious if they go bus only for now as things are in limbo at park 3- although it likely won’t be by announcement time. Hopefully the transportation system is announced.

The statement matches what we already know about that development.

It's interesting hearing about the cost of these plots of land as it's no where near as expensive as I would have thought. The cost of putting a monorail between the resorts would be more than buying all the land.

 

[JungleSkip]

I'm gonna say the first dry park will probably be the size of Epcot (~300 acres). This is going to be Universal's flagship park. This park also will be the one park for convention goes to hit up during the night after a day on the town with the resorts being right across the road.

DisneySea is "only" 176 acres and feels way bigger than EPCOT. Personally I don't see them going bigger than that.

Edit: To add, most of Epcot’s acrge is taken up by World Showcase Lagoon, which is a pretty big waste of space. I don’t see Uni wasting prime real estate on that