Rumors continue around fourth Universal gate in Florida

Nintendo makes a ton of sense, right? You have Hyrule as a land, Mushroom Kingdom as a land, Pokemon could be a land, DK's Jungle... and then a million smaller but still super popular IPs to fill in the blanks. Your Metroids, Splatoons, F-Zeros.

It's the long awaited expansion of An American Tail land. Everyone knows that. When you have a hot IP like that, you don't let it go to waste.

Peanuts. It's one giant park devoted to peanuts. And I don't mean Charlie Brown.

peanuts. oh, I thought you..., never mind. And I had already bought my plane ticket.

In all honestly I wonder how much of this is "real" time rumour, rather than just a fanboy rehash of every old rumour, thrown into one pot. I guess the obvious question is, has any work started on Fievel land, either closure or actual demo? I thought it had already started (but that was just my faulty memory) considering that Japan's was already well under way. If not, then there must be a reason..... Moving Nintendo land to the new park would certainly allow for the inclusion of the Zelda theater attraction that seems to have fallen out of the Osaka version.

As for Jurassic World, I find it hard to believe that they'd recycle that IP for the third park. World and Park are synonymous in most people's minds, truly a difference without a distinction (or extinction, ha I crack myself up). Although I was amused that since every other old rumour was re-hashed, that the old "Soarin' style flying theater" attraction from the original plan for IOA (Dino copter tours) wasn't resuscitated. It's so obvious that its omission is a knock on the credibility of this article.

Way too many other issues to be discussed, but obviously a third park is coming. What themes/IP's will be included is anyone's guess.

I could see them moving Jurassic World (Park) to another gate entirely just to free up the land for more Potter.

Potter is still the power house and JP currently sits right next door. But Jurassic World is also a recent record breaker and extremely popular. Hell Dino's in general are extremely popular. So moving it and expanding it makes sense, and would offer the opportunity to expand Potter a bit more in the existing park.

That seems a bit....expensive. Especially when the article mentions that "Ministry of Magic" would be in the new park. (Anyone remember the phone booth in the London expansion where if you dial M A G I C, you get a message that the ministry is closed?)

ApolloAndy said:

Peanuts. It's one giant park devoted to peanuts. And I don't mean Charlie Brown.

Universal would never have a Peanuts licen... never mind.

Morté615 said:

I could see them moving Jurassic World (Park) to another gate entirely just to free up the land for more Potter.

Potter is still the power house and JP currently sits right next door. But Jurassic World is also a recent record breaker and extremely popular. Hell Dino's in general are extremely popular. So moving it and expanding it makes sense, and would offer the opportunity to expand Potter a bit more in the existing park.

If they need more land for Hogsmeade, I would imagine that the Lost Continent would be sacrificed before Jurassic Park, but it is possible they could relocate it to a fourth gate. It would be a shame because Jurassic Park is the only place at IOA that isn't brutally hot all the time.

I would imagine Universal would add Potter to a 4th gate before moving/removing JP for more Potter space at IOA. It would make sense to spread out Potter to attract tourists to yet another park. I mean they were pretty smart by building up Potter at both parks and connecting them with a themed train.

Honestly, they have a lot of office space they could relocate away from the park. A lot of those people don't need to be on-site to do their jobs.

Exactly what Jeff Said.

There is a ton of back office space that could be Potterized before they would get too far into Jurassic Park. And there is certainly enough space before you would have to touch the River Adventure. Moving JP/JW to the 3rd park just seems like a concept that doesn't make sense. Stranger things have happened, but that's a bit too far fetched. Taking JP out of IOA would leave the new, expensive and popular, Kong attraction all jungled up by itself. Again, one more impediment to the idea of moving JP.

Which is not to say that the new park couldn't have a Jurassic World component, but ask yourself what type of hardware would it be? Flying Coaster like Japan....ok, maybe, but given the removal of Dragons, not sure that a big steel flying coaster in necessarily a direction they're heading. Flying coaster has already been done in that market (Manta), so there wouldn't be much "marketing" potential in a similar ride at the 3rd park. If there's any big coaster in the mix, I would assume it's going to be really big, and eclipse Mako. Those are two big IFs, and honestly, I could see Universal shying away from anything like a major outdoor steel coater altogether.

What else does that leave other than reviving the former Dino-Tours Flying theater concept. Not much. Again, the whole rumour/post on Disney and More (which is a great site), just doesn't seem "right".

Jeff said:

Honestly, they have a lot of office space they could relocate away from the park. A lot of those people don't need to be on-site to do their jobs.

If I am remembering correctly there was an article I read online (Sentinel maybe?) that Universal filed permits to build an office building and warehouse on some new property they bought off Universal Blvd. The thought was that the park would move those spaces out of the backstage space at Studios thus freeing up land for the rumored Potter hotel (or general park expansion) that could lead directly into one of the lands. It makes sense but their main office building behind Studios was built just a couple years ago so I can't imagine they'd rip it down already.

Employee parking is also a massive area that can be moved elsewhere.

Did I just read "Stranger Things Land?" I'd visit that! (I mean, as long as we're floating rumors...) (I'm pulling that from CreditWhores post, btw)

you're not far off, as Universal just announced Stranger Things mazes for HHN at Hollywood, Orlando, and Singapore.

TheMillenniumRider said:

Employee parking is also a massive area that can be moved elsewhere.

That is almost entirely in a parking garage that they built a year or so ago backstage. So again I don't think they will be tearing that down considering the cost to build a garage. There is still plenty of land behind Studios and along the train that connects the park for future expansion and likely what we will see used.

The sat images show a massive surface lot still present back there, about twice the footprint of the garage.

Yeah, that will likely be used for future expansion since they built the garage to make up for that loss of parking when that happens. My guess would be that rumored hotel since that parking lot backs right up to Potter and the train station that could drop you into IOA. And actually there is some construction already started back there somewhere I think...can't seem to remember what it was I saw. The last Google Maps view is pretty old as it still has the Beetlejuice theater in the image but I do believe there is something happening back there. I will have to drive by sometime this weekend and take a look.