Universal Parks & Resorts says they’re bringing a family-focused theme park and resort hotel to North Texas.
In North Texas, Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney announced Wednesday morning that Universal Parks & Resorts was planning to build a theme park and hotel geared toward families with young children on the north side of town.
“Just another exciting day here in Frisco, Texas, bringing a worldwide brand like Universal Studios here to our community. It’s quite the honor; they could have picked anywhere in the world,” said Cheney.
Specific details about the park were not disclosed, but officials did say it would have traditional offerings like rides, shows and food while also including meet and greets with characters from Universal properties, films and shows – like Minions or Shrek.
A rendering of the park includes a lush border with a grand entrance that opens to a lagoon. From there, guests can head in a number of directions to visit themed areas of the park.
The park design also included a river with what appears to be a boat ride throughout the park.
According to Universal Parks & Resorts Chairman and CEO Mark Woodbury, the park will be unlike any other Universal park in the world and they were “wildly excited” to bring the park to North Texas.
“We literally looked virtually every place you could imagine and North Texas rose right to the top and Frisco rose right to the top of North Texas,” said Woodbury. “So it became pretty evident that this is a great place and it’s a great market in itself and everything we want, a vibrant community, a growing community, lots of young families and very centrally located.”
He said they felt this new concept of a theme park would fit perfectly in Frisco.
“We’re known for creating one-of-a-kind innovative, interactive experiences for the whole family,” Woodbury said. “We have a portfolio of terrific attractions that appeal to young families around the world. We had an idea to bring all of those together and create a destination that is specifically designed to appeal to families with young children. That’s what you see in this illustration now and that’s what we hope to bring to Frisco.”
The footprint is about one-quarter the size of the parks in Orlando, scaled smaller to be more “intimate and engaging” for younger guests. The company said the theme park will have a completely different look, feel, and scale compared to Universal’s existing parks but will still carry the same quality as the larger resort destinations.
“The idea is to create a place in a region like this that people can come to time and time again, in between their visits to our big vacation destinations like Los Angeles or Orlando,” explained Woodbury.
He said the park is expected to be a one-day or two-day experience and that they plan to also build a 300-room themed resort hotel on the property.
Page Thompson, president of new ventures for Universal Parks & Resorts, said Wednesday the company bought 97 acres on the east side of the Dallas North Tollway, north of Panther Creek Parkway for the construction of both the park and a themed hotel.
The theme park will be built near the 2,500-acre Fields development, which includes plans for roughly 10,000 homes, the headquarters of the PGA, a golf course and a $500 million Omni resort hotel. Cheney said the economic impact the new theme park will have, is huge.
