Universal has been hard at work for over a year clearing and grading land for their new theme park, Epic Universe. Last week, they filed construction plans for the Nintendo section of the new theme park with the Orange County Government. Thanks to a public records request, we’ve obtained the area’s site plan, so let’s take a look!
Officially announced in August, Epic Universe is speculated to feature four themed lands, one of which being Super Nintendo World. The Nintendo section can be seen on the left of the concept art below:
Universal and Nintendo first announced their partnership way back in 2015, and promised to bring Nintendo attractions to all of Universal’s theme parks. Construction is already well underway at Universal Studios Japan, with their version of Super Nintendo World opening in 2020. Universal Studios Hollywood has also started construction on their rumored Super Nintendo attractions, however no official announcement has been made about their opening date. Even Universal Studios Singapore has announced their plans to add Nintendo attractions in the coming years.
So what about Orlando? Orlando’s version was originally set to replace KidZone at Universal Studios Florida. Plans were filed back in July of 2017 (Project 487), but as focus shifted to Universal’s new theme park, it appears these plans were cancelled and Super Nintendo World was moved to Epic Universe. We’ve included a quick overlay of the old plans below so you can see how Super Nintendo World would have fit into Universal Studios Florida:
It’s no surprise that this is the first section of Epic Universe to go into permitting – these new plans are remarkably similar to the plans filed back in 2017 – they appear to have just been rotated roughly 180° clockwise and slightly modified to fit within the layout of the new park:
Of course, since this is only a site plan there’s not too much that’s new or interesting to look at. If you want a better idea of what this new land will look like (and haven’t already seen it), Orlando Park Stop has a great article featuring some leaked shots of the model, which seem to match up nicely with these plans. There’s also some great construction shots of Japan’s version of the land over at ThemeParkX if you want to see what it looks like in real life!
In my opinion, the most exciting thing about these plans is that we can now overlay this section of the park on to the overall infrastructure plan for Epic Universe and begin to get a better picture of what the park will look like. It really puts the overall size and scope of the whole project into perspective!
So, now we just have to wait patiently for Epic Universe to open so we can experience our own version of Super Nintendo World… I can’t wait to watch this project progress over the next several years – exciting times are ahead for sure!