Back in early February, Universal filed plans with Orange county to construct warehouses and office space on the northern part of the new property near Sand Lake Road. The county took a month to review the plans and sent Universal comments, questions, and suggestions. We then began to wait for Universal to respond and resubmit.
Finally, after 3 months of no movement, last week they submitted updated plans on June 8th, the same day they applied for the Fantastic Worlds trademark. The new plans are similar to the original ones from February, but they alter the configuration somewhat. The updated plans decrease the amount of warehouse space by about 60,000 square feet, but massively increase the office space from 95,000 s.f. to 320,000 s.f. along with 500 additional parking spaces. Other information of interest is that the plans no longer include any drainage ponds, and Universal's written responses say that this area will be developed all at once rather than in phases.
The plans still face a fairly lengthy approval process with construction being even further into the future, but as the first real plans to be submitted since this spring's land acquisition, they show that Universal is far enough along in the design process that they are confident in keeping the northern part of the site as backstage and the guest areas on the southern side, and that they are ready to start making progress towards real construction.