Universal Orlando Resort Expansion (Part 1)

[Bobharlem]

Surface lots on Universal's land doesn't make sense, IMO. Sure, they have a large mass of land, but it is nowhere limitless. A surface lot absorbs too much footprint. WDW most likely still has surface lots for multiple reasons:

• They have an abundance of land and are not constrained yet to build up and not out
• Some of their parks benefit from large marquee visuals (i.e. Spaceship Earth visible from far away and not blocked by say a garage)
• (Admittedly, this is my opinion) Some guests may view the tram ride from the lot to the park as the start and end of a Disney visit, thus Disney sees the nostalgia value in keeping that.

If Universal chooses to go with a surface lot, so be it. But I just don't see how that's a feasible start/use of this land.

IOA was built on the Studio's parking lot, if they build garages across the street later it could be just USF/IOA redux as far as the master plan goes.

 

[JungleSkip]

IOA was built on the Studio's parking lot, if they build garages across the street later it could be just USF/IOA redux as far as the master plan goes.

Right, it just seems really odd that they're doing that when the plan seems to be for 2 parks from day one, according to insiders. That seems like adding a lot of extra, unnecessary expense.

 

[RichOBJ]

IOA was built on the Studio's parking lot, if they build garages across the street later it could be just USF/IOA redux as far as the master plan goes.

If that's their approach then it makes sense to go this route. It just all depends on how big their plans are from Day 1.

 

[Andysol]

Right, it just seems really odd that they're doing that when the plan seems to be for 2 parks from day one, according to insiders. That seems like adding a lot of extra, unnecessary expense.

Eh- timeshares and a golf course were planned for UOR#1. Yet here we are with a water park and lots of hotel rooms.

Just because something is planned on a piece of paper, doesn’t mean it ends up happening or even planned for in the short term. We were talking a decade+ before a new park even starts construction- theme parks can’t and don’t concretely plan that far out. They’ll cross that bridge when they get to it.

 

[Mad Dog]

A projected second park on the south property may be 'way' further down the Universal timeline than people have been guessing. Like 2040 or so.

 

[zg44]

There's no chance that they'd plan for a permanent surface lot. But a surface lot for 10 years while they gauge out the metrics on the 3rd dry park? That makes plenty of sense.

UOR's original surface lot lasted for only like what, 6 or 7 years?


If the 3rd dry park hits 10 million attendance by 2030, then they'll tear it all up... I wouldn't be worried about a surface lot at all at this stage.

 

[Mad Dog]

There's no chance that they'd plan for a permanent surface lot. But a surface lot for 10 years while they gauge out the metrics on the 3rd dry park? That makes plenty of sense.

UOR's original surface lot lasted for only like what, 6 or 7 years?


If the 3rd dry park hits 10 million attendance by 2030, then they'll tear it all up...

Yeah....and.... If, and that's a big if it ever even happens, that they build a second theme park on the south property, and if it's far off in the distance time wise, it makes little sense to sink a ton of money into building huge one or two parking garages now. Plus, in 14-20 years those garages would be due for mucho maintainance updates, as are the present garages that are in that time frame. Surface lots actually sound like a better business decision at this stage of the game....Why build something (garages) that are going to have to be repaired and/or replaced by the time you get around to building a second park.

 

[zg44]

Yeah....and.... If, and that's a big if it ever even happens, that they build a second theme park on the south property, and if it's far off in the distance time wise, it makes little sense to sink a ton of money into building huge one or two parking garages now. Plus, in 14-20 years those garages would be due for mucho maintainance updates, as are the present garages that are in that time frame. Surface lots actually sound like a better business decision at this stage of the game....Why build something (garages) that are going to have to be repaired and/or replaced by the time you get around to building a second park.

Yeah that's an important point that I don't think we've considered.

I'd rather build the garages around 2035 when they're needed than 2022 when you're sort of just wasting 12 years of having massive garage overcapacity.

For the first half-decade or so of this park, most of the visitors will be brought in from those 9000 rooms at the current resort+Endless Summer; many of them on buses.

 

[pat_naughty05]

You have to think of this from a budgeting perspective. This expansion in its entirety is going to cost an incredibly large amount of money. At this point, it only make sense to spend the money to build parking that meets the needs of the expansion that has currently been greenlit, which we seem to agree is most likely the new park and new Citywalk (hotels will have their own parking). It’s not realistic to expect them to build a much more expensive parking structure that would only be needed for expansion plans that are only part of a blue-sky long range plan at this point.

 

[Mad Dog]

You have to think of this from a budgeting perspective. This expansion in its entirety is going to cost an incredibly large amount of money. At this point, it only make sense to spend the money to build parking that meets the needs of the expansion that has currently been greenlit, which we seem to agree is most likely the new park and new Citywalk (hotels will have their own parking). It’s not realistic to expect them to build a much more expensive parking structure that would only be needed for expansion plans that are only part of a blue-sky long range plan at this point.

:thumbsup:

 

[Brian G.]

Am I crazy to think that the road that runs along the extension/expansion is a dedicated bus road?

 

[ParkRumors]

If you're talking about the two lane road that runs down the center of the Kirkman extension, then yes, those are dedicated bus lanes - they are specifically mentioned in the Krikman Extension studies I posted several pages ago. Here's the relevant text again:

The Kirkman Road Extension recommended by this study is proposed to feature a multi-modal corridor with six general traffic lanes, two dedicated transit lanes, and a multi-purpose path. The dedicated transit lanes will facilitate the person-carrying capacity of the corridor and will provide tourist and convention visitors, and local service employees an alternative choice for meeting their mobility needs.

The other roads on the map that connect to the back of house warehouses and office buildings are internal service roads, and perhaps for employee shuttles, given how they terminate in a loop.

 

[DuelingDragonskid]

Wait this is 2 parks!?

 

[Happytycho]

I'm really intrigued by what was called "Future entrance 2" on the Kirkman extension documents, as these plans show a bridge being built to carry the service road for the west side of the park over it. Going to through the effort and cost of building a bridge suggests that the future entrance 2 will be for guests, but it's not clear what exactly it can lead to. My best guess is that they are putting one or more hotels there on the north side of the park, but locating hotels between the park, back of house areas, and the treatment plant feels very odd. Nevertheless, I drew out where I think things might be located in this first phase, with many specific divisions of space still unknown:

I've said numerous times that I believe parking needs to move south of the property's main road for a second park to be built, which gives a layout along these lines:

The exact sizes and and shapes of things are guesses and approximations, but I think this gives some idea what we can expect going forward.

 

[ParkRumors]

Future Entrance 2 might be for employee parking - the currently filed plans for the two BOH areas containing warehouses and office buildings only really have enough parking for the employees that will work in those facilities, and not enough to support a full theme park. I'm thinking most of that area back there will be parking and more BOH facilities.

 

[Bobharlem]

Speculation: The "second water park" would be close to Shingle creek in the Southeast corner to give it a more shady feel (ala Schlitterbahn West in New Braunfels, TX). Either that or a hotel (or both, see below). Still enough room for a 4th dry park in the Middle where the parking lot is marked.

One neat thing about Schlitterbahn there is the some of the resort/hotels are quite literally within the park itself (Exit back door of hotel room, enter lazy river), which would work here. (hint hint)

 

[JungleSkip]

Someone needs to make me a map.

 

[DisneyDoof]

Someone needs to make me a map.

Will have one by the end of this week. These plans great news (Too bad I just found out about them because I was in class all day)! Surface Lot makes sense to me because asphalt is cheap and Uni doesn't need a garage for the initial years that it's open. Was Universal Studios built with 2 garages, no. As time progresses, the surface lot will eventually be reconfigured into other things. Garages, hotels, theme parks, who knows. I'm just super psyched because these plans show that it's FINALLY HAPPENING PEOPLE!

 

[Griffin C]

I'm really intrigued by what was called "Future entrance 2" on the Kirkman extension documents, as these plans show a bridge being built to carry the service road for the west side of the park over it. Going to through the effort and cost of building a bridge suggests that the future entrance 2 will be for guests, but it's not clear what exactly it can lead to. My best guess is that they are putting one or more hotels there on the north side of the park, but locating hotels between the park, back of house areas, and the treatment plant feels very odd. Nevertheless, I drew out where I think things might be located in this first phase, with many specific divisions of space still unknown:
View attachment 8287
I've said numerous times that I believe parking needs to move south of the property's main road for a second park to be built, which gives a layout along these lines:
View attachment 8288
The exact sizes and and shapes of things are guesses and approximations, but I think this gives some idea what we can expect going forward.

Based on this map, I've made some measurements on Google Earth overlay:
CityWalk (current at UOR): Around 20 acres
CityWalk (as on pred. map): 14 acres

Park (as on pred. map + backstage): around 130 acres
IOA: 100 acres
USF: 85 acres
VB: 32 acres (with 5 acre expansion)

Parking lot (as on road map): 67 acres
Parking garages (one): 15 acres

South hotel (beneath road, above Universal Blvd.): 93 acres
Sapphire Falls: 21 acres
Aventura: 5 acres
Cabana Bay: 38 acres

Hope this helped.

 

[GoUCFKnights]

I'll just repost what I posted here about 3 months ago and got ridiculed for saying:

But there are advantages to Universal as well for building a huge surface lot. Surface parking lots are sometimes part of a future approval strategy. There usually is no scrutiny given to building surface lots at all, and then once they're built, replacing a surface parking lot with just about anything eliminates any possibility of environmental concerns and reduces the likelihood of anyone being petitioning against the replacement of it since its such an undesirable land use. As development codes get stricter and stricter and there is more and more requirements for natural/open space/maintaining tree coverage requirements, etc, and building a surface parking lot on the land of a future 4th dry park will ultimately "lock in" today's codes. Unless of course they do get less stringent, but then they can still take advantage of that as well.

And cost is far less then a parking garage, especially a huge one with escalators and moving walk ways, on top of the standard features. Like per parking spot, I'm sure its at least 75% cheaper to build a surface spot, probably even less expensive then that. Plus I'm not sure there timeline for the 4th dry park, but they're likely to get most of the useful life out of the surface lot. I'm not sure on maintenance costs of garages, but Universal's existing ~20 year old garages are badly in need of a renovation, I know others have commented on the poor state of it on the forums, but tons of lights out/electrical problems, many of the moving walkways and escalators don't work and are continually breaking down, and it wouldn't be surprising to hear they have cracks and other items that need or are receiving remediation.

Plus the timeline likely will allow them to get most of the useful life out of a surface parking lot, as it doesn't sound like anyone thinks a 4th dry park will be coming before 2030, so if they get the lot built next year (so they can use it for staging/construction worker parking), it likely will be about ready for resurfacing around the time Universal is ready to get started on the 4th dry park, and they can just build a garage then instead, and at the appropriate size for the three parks we expect the new land to have, and there is of course a cost to spending the money earlier then needed... it probably doesn't help them financially at all in the long term to build a garage first to avoid wasting the surface lot, and it definitely hurts them financially in the short term to build the garage instead of a surface lot on land that will be sitting empty for 10+ years.

While guests may say its nice to have the covered parking and I no doubt prefer if they would build a garage, I doubt it will affect anyone's willingness to pay for the parking, so there is no financial advantage. It just makes little sense for them to build a garage when they could build the surface lot on the site of the long term future dry park #4.

For the record, I also was saying Super Nintendo World would NOT get built in Studios if the lawsuit settled in a timely manner in this same thread and was also ridiculed for that. I also stand by my predictions its unlikely Nintendo gets split up between the parks in a manner similar to Harry Potter.