Universal Orlando Resort has announced plans for a new theme park, the fourth for the company in Orlando, and the project has an interesting wrinkle for meetings and events: officials say a planned road extension to the park will enable an expansion of the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC).
At a press conference announcing the new theme park, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, Tom Williams and Brian Roberts said that Universal would take part in extension of Kirkman Road via a 50/50 public-private partnership. Universal will invest $160 million to extend Kirkman Road south of 482 into the area where the new theme park will be located.
“The Kirkman extension will improve transportation through a busy and growing portion of our county and open up the entire area for additional development – including an important expansion of our Convention Center,” Demings said.
Late last year the OCCC received approvals to move forward with improvements to the facility’s North-South Building, including the Convention Way Grand Concourse and the Multipurpose Venue. These projects will improve the OCCC’s North-South building with more meeting space and options, the OCCC said at the time.
The Convention Way Grand Concourse, an enclosed connection between the North and South concourses, includes additional meeting space and an 80,000-square-foot ballroom with a grand entrance to the North-South building along Convention Way.
The new Multipurpose Venue is a 200,000-square-foot, flexible, divisible, column-free space with a combination of retractable and floor seating to accommodate between 18,000-20,000 guests while incorporating connectivity between the North and South concourses.
As for the new theme park, that will be called Universal’s Epic Universe. Located in a 750-acre site that nearly doubles Universal’s total available acreage in Central Florida, the park will have an entertainment center, hotels, shops, restaurants and more. It will represent the single largest investment the resort’s parent company, Comcast NBCUniversal, has made in its theme park business and in Florida overall to date, according to Brian L. Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation.
Further details on the new theme park will be announced at a later date.
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