Pete C

Yeah I can say at the Paramount security was very good. Never saw any shady activity or heard of anything in the 2 years I was there.

That is great to see officially that Phase III will take up the lot in front of the Jackson...really hoping that happens. That will wrap up every ugly dirt lot in South Eola except for the Citi Tower lot which is in limbo now.

I don't mean worried as if Universal will overtake them in attendance. That will probably never happen. However, Universal will continue to take away business. Before Harry Potter, Disney used to have many more guests that would come to Orlando only to visit Disney and never leave the property. Universal's goal was to pull those guests away for a day or two during their visit, and they have succeeded. That is money out of Disney's pockets. I am already seeing buzz on the internet from people that have never visited Universal that now want to go once they build Nintendo rides. It will pull in a completely new set of enthusiastic fans. This takes more money away from Disney. As for Disney's new attractions, their main ones are Avatar and a Hollywood Studios re-branding and makeover which will supposedly have an increased Star Wars presence/land and possible Carsland duplicate from DCA. Star Wars would be huge and would be the shot in the arm that park desperately needs. Fantasyland is still going stong in Magic Kingdom. So that leaves Epcot, which unfortunately doesn't have anything major on the horizon to my knowledge. The Frozen attraction is just a small ride within Norway. It will not be a major "E-ticket" attraction. Soarin will freshen up the ride with a new higher-res film and add capacity. A nice addition but nothing earth shattering. I hope they announce something truly new and exciting for Epcot soon.

Actually no, they cannot create any new Marvel rides, only keep the existing ones.

Oh My God. That is HUGE! Disney has to be getting at least a little worried right now. Universal is going big time. First Harry Potter, next expanded hotel properties, then a water park, and now this. Huge, and absolutely ridiculous merchandise opportunities.

I must be thick headed...what is the point of the fence if they want to feed the homeless? I would think they would only build a fence to keep homeless away.

True, the north stands do have unique features.

It's going to have a terrace with a pool overlooking the plaza...the photo is insinuating it will be an infinity pool. That would be hot!

The west side stands will have elevated luxury boxes from the start. The entire west side structure is different from the east side. The east and north side stands are very minimal with just support structure, stands, and open-air concourse. The west side is a solid concrete enclosed building with a interior club level.

Yeah agree on non-fans for sure. It's just a theory based on my experience as a fan who can only go to about 4-5 games a year.

I don't think there is any way the demand is 40K per game for the entire season. I don't think that is possible, but they will find out real fast if they keep opening up sections every game. Most people can't afford to go to every game (especially those with families) or even a lot of games. So the demand for 40K might be there for game 2, but if you give 40K fans their soccer fix that week what does that do to game 3 sales? Game 4 sales? A lot of those people that go to game 2 are not going to game 3, etc, whereas if you cap game 2 capacity those people will buy game 3 and game 4 tickets. You need to keep demand at a consistent level. The worst thing that could happen is they keep opening up everything and sell max tickets, then have an under 20K attendance game. Then it looks like our support is waning. I guess we will see though. I just thinking opening up plaza level might be a mistake.

That would have helped some, however there was still a fundamental issue with how they balanced the load. The main problem Sunday is you had 6 trains picking up before the game going downtown (3 from north, 3 from south at 90 min intervals), and only 2 departing directly after the game (1 going north and 1 going south). Simple math should have told them they should have as many trains coming back from the dropoff as they had going too the dropoff.

Yeah, I used to walk by it all the time and there was never a soul there. It can't just sit there as it is just to save the trees. The city would have to spend money and turn it into a real park to make people actually want to gather there. It is also a very small lot. If they could do like a Japanese garden that would be awesome. Something like that...a quiet place for residents not into the all the activity at Lake Eola. However, if they don't want to put proper walking paths around it with lighting and benches, then townhomes are a better usage of that space.

The new stadium will have 19.5K seats when it opens. It is expandable to 28K according to the latest article on the Sentinel. Orlando City considers opening more seats for Citrus Bowl games http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orlando-city-lions/on-the-pitch/os-orlando-city-attendance-cap-2015-beyond-20150310-post.html Also, there is something to be said for selling out games. You don't want to just open up a ton of seats and then not sell them out for the sake of exposing as many people as possible to the games. Sold out games = hype = demand. It drives sales.

I just looked at the second game and there are still tickets in the lower bowl on Ticketmaster. The regular season seating map is only the lowest level of the lower bowl (the 100s sections) and excludes the corners. That map is 20K seats and I have attached it below. For this game they have already opened up the corners in the 100s sections and most of those seats are gone, so they are definitely over 20K so far for game 2. Next would be the plaza level (the P sections). These seats also have chairbacks. This section has not opened up yet at all, and I believe that is still technically part of the "lower bowl", so they have a long ways to go to selling out the lower bowl for game 2. The upper deck is definitely not going to happen. They'd have to sell out plaza level first. The entire lower bowl including the plaza is around 37-40K seats I believe.

I agree soccer and hockey have a lot of similarities. I have always said this to sports fans who dismiss soccer. They are both games of tension and anxiety. Goals in soccer and hockey give you a euphoric release that other sports don't often provide unless it is in the waning moments of a close game. The only thing I like better about hockey is that there is more scoring. The checking is also great and adds an exciting physical element to the game, but on the other side of that coin the fighting allowed is utterly ridiculous IMO. It has nothing to do with the game itself, so I don't know why it is in the game. NFL is a brutal game and doesn't need it, so why does the NHL? I never felt that the soccer watching experience was dragged down by the ball going out of bounds. It takes seconds before the game is going again unless it is a corner kick, which is exciting because that is a scoring opportunity. I like both sports personally. Either of them are much more exciting than baseball.

The horde of people walking down Church St through Parramore was the biggest surprise of the day for me. I didn't think there would be many people making that walk through a notorious neighborhood aside from the hardcore supporters that do the "march to the match" from downtown. However, as I was cutting through Westmoreland to avoid the main roads, I crossed Church St and all I saw was purple. These were not organized supporters...they were scores of couples, friends, and families young and old. What an awesome sight!

Don't know if you guys heard, but as I predicted a few posts back, SunRail service was a complete disaster on Sunday. As early as 1 PM the trains going downtown were so packed they had to start skipping stations, leaving riders waiting on the platforms. My friend was at the Winter Park station and they could not board the train. They had to abort the SunRail idea and drive to the game. Then you had the post game scenario. Once I read this last week, the numbers just didn't add up: "More than 40 buses will be continuously running in a loop post-game to ensure fans a smooth exit from the stadium to various downtown locations." Soooo...40 busses leaving the Citrus Bowl and only 1 SunRail train departing each way after the game (and the next scheduled train 90 minutes later). I don't know why I saw this coming and the city with all their planners did not. This was a big fail on the first test of SunRail being used for events.

Nice find. I heard about this one a couple weeks back, but no rendering. So many setbacks and cancellations in the development of Maitland...it's really infuriating. I hope this one makes it through.

Wow, this is crazy. Downtown is starting to explode again.

I was thinking the same about the art gallery. That would really bridge the gap between Thornton Park and Downtown for the 3rd Thursday art walk. Glad to hear the developer wants to make this a vibrant retail destination either way!

Discussed already one page back... http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php/topic/51723-downtown-orlando-project-discussion/page-111

How are both buildings in the rendering? The rendering shows one of the buildings from 520 and the other one in the background is Artisan 420.

Once the hype dies down, 20K should be the correct capacity for regular season games. Most MLS teams don't hit that number weekly, so we would have to have some sort of soccer phenomenon going on here to eclipse what other metro areas twice our size can't even do. Also, we might not win as much as the team says we will. I was not impressed with our preseason play at all, so I really hope they can get it together over the course of the season. If we end up being terrible, the hype train will be impacted. In any case, they planned for future stadium expansion, but I think they would only do that after consistent sellouts with no sign of slowdown for a few years. I think they took the right approach to the new stadium.

Oh man...the Sunday SunRail service is going to be a disaster. Three major events downtown all happening around the same time, and only TWO trains scheduled for each northbound and southbound for the evening after those events! 90 minutes apart mind you. What the heck are they thinking? There will be thousands of people at Church St station trying to get home on those first trains. I used to take Marta to games in Atlanta, and those trains would run every 20 minutes or so and would be completely packed to the gills for big games with mobs of people waiting to get on them. The max SunRail train is 3 passenger cars with a capacity of "more than 150 people" each (from the SunRail site). So, "more than 450" people officially. So, between the two first trains after those events they can only handle about 1,000 or so people. With 60,000 people going to the Orlando City game, at least 12,000 for the Magic, and then another few thousand for the ballet, I think there just might be more than 1,000 taking the free train. Of course, people will pack in like sardines, ruining everyone's experience. Then you will have the rest stranded on the platform for 90 minutes until the next train comes. I think Uber is going to get a lot of business on Sunday.