After spending years buying up land not too far from the current Universal Orlando Resort property and even starting work on the site, the company finally confirmed today that they are indeed building a third theme park.
While Universal shared very few details of what the park will entail, they shared that it will be called Universal’s Epic Universe. In addition to the park, the 750-acre site will feature an “entertainment center, hotels, shops, restaurants and more.” How much of that land the park will take up has not been shared. Will it have its own version of City Walk or will all of these things be within the park’s boundaries? We’ll have to wait to find out.
The site will be just south of Sand Hill Road. Check out a map released by Universal giving an idea of its proximity to the current resort. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of transportation is available between the two sites.
Today’s announcement was more about economics that park content. Universal says they’ll hire 14,000 new employees for Epic Universe with starting hourly pay of $15/hour. There will also be investments in infrastructure surrounding the new site.
The company says Epic Universe will be “the most immersive and innovative theme park we have ever created.” The concept art for the site seems to be purposely vague, with very few details to be gleaned from it. I don’t think I’d put much stock in this staying the same, but with that said, let’s dive in.
There’s a coaster on the right side, what appears to be a theater off to the top left, and the entrance is at the bottom, left of center. There’s a streetscape of some kind in the top/mid right with fireworks obscuring what appears to be a large show building. That’s about as far as I’ll dig right now, thought there are some other interesting bits in there. Click the image to enlarge it and have a look.
What IP are you hoping is included in Epic Universe? More Wizarding World? Nintendo? How to Train Your Dragon? There are a lot of possibilities.
