Please bear with me so I can understand. Stan Thomas is not a good poker player but knows when he is not holding a winning hand so the bluff he was running with the "No Theme Park" suit was called and maybe that means the east land (green/yellow depending on your eyes) that was only valuable to Universal may be part of the settlement (for a bundle of cash) to drop the suit, allow a park to be built and sell the land to Universal? Is that right?
The purpose of the lawsuits was never to stop a theme park from being built, Stan Thomas had no reason to want that. It was to get paid off for a restriction that was placed on the land. Before the lawsuit was filed, they were negotiating for some time on the remaining land and removing the restrictive covenant in exchange for money, and they just never reached an agreement on that dollar amount. Stan Thomas probably wanted way too much, as he lost the land in a foreclosure and it turned out to be not so good of an investment for him, so he wanted to recover those losses from Universal.
To be honest, this news does not mean we know who "won", did Universal come up in that dollar amount from what they were offering before the suit was filed, and how did it compare to the attorneys' fees, and we likely will never know that part of it, as its all confidential. What we know is early on in the case, Universal was trying to slow things down, cost Stan lots of attorneys fees to push him to settle, but then reversed course and tried to speed things up a ton as they decided they needed it over to get going on the third park, so that could have played to Stan's favor and raised the amount Universal was willing to pay as every day the new park is not operational, its costing them potential profit, and it may have become apparent if they don't settle now, it could delay their new park for another year or so.
Likewise, Stan reversed course as Universal did, when Universal tried to speed it up, and everyone knew they wanted to get the third park done, he tried to slow it down, but some of those tactics did backfire on him with the judge sanctioning him very recently for his delay of case methods, and time was also working against him with the foreclosure suit on the other land. But we don't know if Universal's offer went up significantly from before the suit, if it got more land sold, or any of the other details if it was "worth" the suit for Stan or Universal. We just reached a point where it was crunch time for both. And I do some work in real estate and have followed some similiar suits before, I'm not quite sure Stan would have necessarily lost, restrictive covenants are just that, restrictive covenants, and he was an interested party as a neighbor owning land whose value or intended uses could easily be changed by what Universal does. And if Stan won on the merits of the case, he would have had a much better hand to get much more money out of Universal, they'd be solely at his mercy for building a theme park (or appealing the case, taking waaayyy more time)
Now the bankruptcy suit proceeds on the red property and maybe in May Stan shows up with a note to pay off the creditors and the way he got the note is Uni backed it OR it goes to the creditors, Stan does not fight it and the creditors sell the land to Universal?
Stan owns lots of other land around the country, and is generally in some financial trouble. We know his plane was recently taken away from him due to lack of payments, and it was mostly paid off, and other land has financial issues. I'm tempted to guess Stan probably has no desire to pay off the note on the remainder of the land unless he has a buyer that is willing to pay more then the note, who is unwilling to wait for it to go through the process (and potentially risk losing it). Universal obviously is that likely buyer, so I'm tempted to believe the land is going to go to Universal so Stan can get some cash to try to stabilize his other properties in other markets.
In the end Universal ends up with all the marbles (1450 acres MoL) and is now surrounding Lockheed Martin on three sides. LM may have plans to move their very expensive plant in the future leaving a cleanup and new land to be done by Universal?
I know that last part is speculation but do I have the rest semi correct?
There is almost no chance of Universal getting LM any time soon, the biggest problem is SeaWorld (I believe about 350 acres of memory serves me right) gives them another park and the land they'd need, is likely more reusable, and is likely waayy cheaper. There is other options too. Universal could try to buy out the holdings of a company like Unicorp, who owns almost 100 acres right across the street from Universal's new land, along Universal Blvd, and that would have the added advantage of removing some of the competition that Universal doesn't like, such as the Eye and the Starflyer, and they might even want less per acre then Lockheed Martin, as they aren't going to be worried about paying for a relocation on top of profiting. Universal will only be interested in Lockheed Martin if Lockheed decides to close that plant for reasons that have nothing to do with Universal, if their business goes south and they need to downsize. Buying something like Shingle Creek golf course would likely make more sense then Lockheed Martin as well (255 acres)
