Hot off the heels of yesterday’s rather lukewarm announcement, Universal has put together a more comprehensive picture of the changes that are coming to the Lower Lot.
Thanks to Variety for covering this news. What this essentially boils down to is another 5-year plan, following the conclusion of the original one that we covered extensively over the last few years.
While the previous one mainly focused on rebuilding the Upper Lot with Springfield, Harry Potter, and Despicable Me creating a strong footprint, this new plan is focused on the new real estate on the lower lot from the destruction of some key soundstages that are butting up against the edge of the lower lot.
We have covered all these demolitions, but seeing these put under a single announcement really covers the scale of the entire work involved.
First up, we already talked about CSI’s (specifically Soundstage 22-25) goliath-sized soundstages that have not been used in an entire capacity since the show wrapped, alongside Soundstage 29 and 31 behind Transformers: The Ride – 3D. These will definitely be going now, as we’ve expected since last year.
Additionally, Soundstage 28’s future has been long rumored to house a new Secret Life of Pets dark ride.
Interestingly, some soundstages being potentially constructed are contingent on Los Angeles winning the bid for the 2024 Olympics. This decision will be made in September next year, so that’s plenty of time to get the facilities ready as NBC once again prepares to be the official TV host. That would certainly provide some interesting footnotes on the tram tour.
There’s a lot of details and changes involved in this, mainly to move the production-half of Universal Studios out of the way of the theme park, while expanding those facilities.
While all of this news has been sparsely coming together over the last few years, it’s encouraging to see it confirmed publicly under a single banner with a commitment to improve both the park and the studio. We’ll have a lot more coverage of this announcement and the ramifications of these changes in the days to come!
Stay tuned!
