Universal Has a New Demolition Permit for Islands of Adventure, Processed September 4, and the Square Footage Field Reads 18,000
On Friday, WDW News Today reported that the construction walls at The Lost Continent had been pushed forward far enough to block off the Treasures of Poseidon gift shop, which had already closed permanently earlier this year. The same outlet had reported on August 19 that the shop was still outside the walls. And on that same Friday, a new demolition permit entered the City of Orlando permit record.
The City of Orlando processed demolition permit DEM2026-10185 on September 4, 2026, for 6100 Universal Blvd, one of the permit addresses Universal uses for Islands of Adventure and CityWalk. The property owner is listed as Universal City Development Partners. The contractor is PCL Construction Services Inc. The project name field, where a building would normally be identified, says only "SPC: PROJECT". And the square footage field reads 18,000.
Why 18,000 is the interesting number, with a caveat
What follows is our reading of the record, not something the permit says. Treasures of Poseidon was the Poseidon's Fury gift shop, and nothing published about the building suggests a footprint anywhere near 18,000 square feet. So either the permit covers considerably more than the shop, or the number means something other than what it looks like.
The caveat matters here, so we are stating it plainly. The square footage field in this dataset is not self-describing and it is not consistently populated. The first September 2025 Lost Continent demolition permit, DEM2025-10175, carries 4.9 in that same field, and Orlando ParkStop reported that permit as covering 4.9 acres. That permit was then cancelled, and Universal posted DEM2025-10178 in its place. The replacement carries 157,400 in the same field. Those two numbers cannot both be describing the same ground. 4.9 acres is about 213,000 square feet, and 157,400 square feet is about 3.6 acres. So 18,000 is very probably square feet, but Universal did not announce it, nobody has confirmed the unit, and we are not going to write it as though the company stated it.
What is not ambiguous is the filing itself, the date, the contractor and the address. Those are all in the public record.
The first new one in almost a year
The City of Orlando dataset carries only six demolition permits for 6100 Universal Blvd, the oldest from 2019. Its records for this address start in 2018. Here they are, newest first.
| Permit | Processed | Square footage field | Project name | Contractor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DEM2026-10185 | Sept 4, 2026 | 18,000 | SPC: PROJECT | PCL Construction Services | Open |
| DEM2025-10178 | Sept 16, 2025 | 157,400 | SPC: PROJECT | PCL Construction Services | Open |
| DEM2025-10175 | Sept 10, 2025 | 4.9 | SPC: UNIVERSAL PROJECT 555 | not listed | Closed (reported cancelled) |
| DEM2022-10060 | June 14, 2022 | 1,500 | B120B Horticulture Greenhouse Removal | Bumpass Construction Svc | Closed |
| DEM2021-10033 | March 12, 2021 | 0 | T241Z Removal | Williams Scotsman | Finaled |
| DEM2019-10010 | Jan 31, 2019 | 13,503.6 | Universal Studios Orlando-Project 942I | Construct Two Construction Managers | Closed |
Two of the six are a greenhouse and what is almost certainly a modular building, that one pulled by Williams Scotsman, a modular space and trailer leasing company. The permit itself says only "T241Z Removal". The two big ones, the 157,400 permit from last September and this new one, share a contractor, PCL, and share a project name field that identifies nothing: "SPC: PROJECT". That label is not unique to them. Eleven filings at this address carry it, all processed since September 2025 and most of them naming PCL, across engineering, building, demolition and fire permits. It reads as the umbrella label for one job rather than a blank where a building name should be. The "SPC:" prefix itself is routine here: 240 permits at this address carry it, under 131 different project names, and most of those do identify a building.
A second permit landed the same day
DEM2026-10185 was not the only Islands of Adventure filing processed on September 4. Building permit BLD2026-17558 was processed the same day, named "SPC: IOA - THEMED CONCRETE REPLACEMENT", with an estimated cost of $714,530 and Slalom Construction and Services Inc listed as the contractor.
Themed concrete is the sculpted, decorative concrete that theme parks use for rockwork, paving and hardscape. The permit does not say where in the park that work is, so what follows is inference again, but a $714,530 concrete replacement job entering the record on the same day as a demolition permit reads more like a site being cleared and resurfaced than a shop being knocked down.
What Universal has actually said
Almost nothing about what is coming, and that has been consistent since last year. The closest thing to an on-record comment about the site's future came from Universal Orlando's Director of Public Relations, Kristen Smith, in a statement to the Orlando Business Journal, quoted by Orlando ParkStop on September 24, 2025: "In the coming months, there will be construction activity in Lost Continent as part of site planning to ensure the area is ready for any future developments."
A year on, that is still the official position on what is coming. Poseidon's Fury was confirmed completely demolished on August 19, from aerial images taken three days earlier. On August 1, aerial photographer bioreconstruct posted that site prep had started where the Eighth Voyage of Sindbad theater was removed, showing "a bed of crushed stone, and staging for new infrastructure"; WDW News Today carried those images on August 3. Mythos Restaurant has walls beside it and is set to close permanently in 2027. The gift shop was reported behind a wall on Friday. The sentence has not been updated.
For what it is worth, these permits do not say either. The project name field on both of the big ones reads "SPC: PROJECT", and the record offers nothing past that.
Sources
- City of Orlando Open Data Portal, Permit Applications dataset (ryhf-m453), queried September 6, 2026 for permits at 6100 Universal Blvd
- WDW News Today, "Universal Prepares to Demolish Treasures of Poseidon Gift Shop at Islands of Adventure"
- Orlando ParkStop, "Universal Orlando News: Lost Continent Demolition Permits and Footers for Rockit Replacement"
- WDW News Today, Lost Continent demolition update, August 3, 2026
- WDW News Today, "Poseidon's Fury at Universal Islands of Adventure is Completely Demolished", August 19, 2026
Image credits: All images Universal Destinations & Experiences.
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