A few people I would love to
recognize 1st is my City Council
here sitting on the front row
that make a lot of this happen.
Today we've got people from our
Economic Development Corporation here.
Today our Community Development Corporation,
visit Frisco, who may have the
biggest smiles in the room today.
Of course, our our planning and zoning who
still has some work to do on this project.
I know we have representatives from
our school district here today.
I think Doctor Walter Pierce today.
Superintendent. Thank you, Mike,
for being here, as well as members
of our RFID boards of trustees.
You'll kind of wave your hands and
be recognized. Thank you here.
Thank you for being here.
Appreciate you.
And of course, other elected officials
were wanting to be here,
some which are serving the state of Texas
here as they've started their session.
But I believe Melanie Marks is here.
Thank you, Melanie,
for being here representing State
Representative Jared Patterson.
So thank you again for this
monumental day in Frisco,
which we've become used to
celebrating here in our community.
And it's fitting in this space,
quite frankly,
after all these years,
this is the first time I've
been in this space.
And it's pretty remarkable that
this is part of our former library
space here in the City of Frisco.
They are moving to their new
home as we speak and as a part
of a $60 million investment.
And so we're going to be looking
for new uses for this space and
already have a few this this
morning just being here.
But it is fitting that this
announcement here today is in this
space because a library is known
as a place for great storytelling,
where these stories come to
life and where families come and
make lasting memories.
And where they come and spend time
with their children and when they come
to bring all these stories to life.
And that's what we're here today to talk
about the new story here in Frisco,
TX and how families for generations to come.
We'll get to experience immersive
environments with the stories they love,
with the movies they see,
and to borrow a line from one of
our favorite authors and one of our
favorite authors in this library,
Doctor Seuss.
One Fish 2 Fish Frisco has a new
wish and that's this morning to
welcome Universal Studios and
Universal Kids Frisco to Frisco, TX.
Welcome.
Mr. Mayor, I thank you for that warm,
colorful and poetic introduction.
That video is a great representation
of who we are as a brand and
what we represent to a family
entertainment around the world.
Thank you for having us.
I'm work with Berry.
I'm chairman and CEO of Universal.
Parks and resorts,
and I am thrilled to be back in Frisco,
particularly today,
to help make this announcement.
I've been with Universal
Studios for over 30 years,
and twenty of those years were
spent designing and building and
creating all of our attractions,
hotels, and resorts around the world.
And I can tell you my favorite
part of my job today remains
introducing new ideas to new people.
So I'm. Excited to be here,
excited to be in Frisco.
You have a fantastic town.
It's vibrant, it's full of energy
and it's full of young families,
which make it a perfect place
to do what we're doing.
So as the mayor said,
we're going to tell you a little bit more
about what we are going to introduce soon,
we hope to introduce soon,
but before you do that,
let me tell you a little
bit more about our company.
We operate today 5 theme parks and
resorts around the World, Nine hotels.
10,000 hotel rooms,
and we're known for creating one-of-a-kind,
innovative,
interactive experiences for the whole family.
We're also known for being a
company that really treasures its
involvement in the communities in
which it participates and operates.
So part of that is developing
incredible teams.
We have 50,000 team members around
the world and the community of our.
Team members is is just tremendous
and it's important for us as we
aspire to become the employer
of choice to focus on how it is
that we bring these team members
to play in new markets so.
Tremendous place to grow,
opportunity to create jobs,
to create opportunities for people,
and that's what we hope to do in Frisco.
Part of our community involvement in
terms of making a team member community
is also how we participate in the
communities in which we operate.
Give you an example, in Orlando,
FL,
our team members contributed over
35,000 hours of volunteer work
to the community in 2022 alone.
So.
It's part of our culture to be
an engaged part of a community,
and we're excited to be able to
have the potential to do that here
in Frisco while we bring together
something that is truly exceptional.
So I know you want to hear more
about what that is.
So I'm about to tell you, are you?
Are you ready to see it?
Boomer, one more time. Alright,
let's take a look at the renderings
of what we're going to show you today.
So this is an artist rendering
of what we have in mind.
We have a portfolio of terrific
attractions that appeal to young
families around the world.
And we had an idea to bring all those
together and create a destination that
is specifically designed to appeal
to families with young children.
And that's what you see in this
illustration now and that's what
we hope to bring to Frisco.
Our dream is to have this,
this place built around a
lush landscaped environment,
four or five themed lands, each one of them.
Full of attractions,
interactive interactive experiences,
discovery experiences,
exploration,
learning opportunities and just a rich,
rich experience for families to
enjoy together and as the mayor said,
to create memories that will last
him a lifetime.
Those different experiences alternate
come together to create this
wonderful universal park design
specifically for the families of
Frisco and the surrounding area.
We think it's a one to two day experience.
So we have a hotel that's got
about 300 rooms in it located in
the front of the park and we think
it represents a universal park
unlike any other in the world and
we're wildly excited about the
potential of bringing that here so.
With the help of the mayor and with
the city and with the community,
it's it's our dream to see this
come forward and we look forward to
the opportunity of sharing opening
day with all of you.
So I I know you want to hear more about it.
So I'm going to introduce to you
Paige Thompson,
our President of new Ventures,
and he's going to give a little
more information.
So thank you for your warm welcome.
Thank you for your hospitality
and thank you for all being here.
Well, I thank you, mark. Hello Mayor,
distinguished guests and the community.
It's great to be here in in Frisco again.
We're very much looking forward
to the possibility of building
this park here in this city.
Let me tell you a little bit more about the
proposed park and build on what Mark shared,
although we actually gave you
a lot of information already,
it's full of family friendly attractions.
Interactive and playful shows,
we're going to have meet and greets with
all our beloved universal characters,
unique merchandise,
fun food and beverage venues and
as Mark said, a 300 room hotel.
So we just recently purchased land on the
east side of the Dallas North Tollway
just north of Panther Creek Parkway.
It's in the fields development.
We're very excited to be part
of the fields development,
the Lance 97 acres and that gives
us plenty of room to build a park,
this themed hotel.
Featuring universal characters,
parking areas and still have lots
of room for a really lush landscape
buffer as well as lots of space for a
thoughtful exit and entrance supplant.
So to give you an even better
sense of the scale of this,
the park is roughly 1/4 of the size
of our big large parks in Orlando.
So it's a scale appropriate
for our young family audience.
And even though it may be smaller in
terms of acreage than our other parks,
the quality of it, the level.
Worthy of the universal name.
So we look forward to working with
the city and the Frisco community in
the weeks ahead and as we pursue the
appropriate approvals for the project.
And so I hope that this idea becomes
a reality and we thank you for all
the excitement and support. So, Mr.
Mayor, back to you. Thank you.
Well, as we always say here in Frisco,
Frisco is built on great partnerships and
this project wouldn't be happening without
great partnerships here in this community.
First and foremost with universal and
their leadership team and the excitement
they have here to join our community.
But it certainly wouldn't have happened
without the fields development,
without family care,
hand and carraghan properties who saw
the vision for this hunt real estate.
They've already been great partners
in bringing PGA Frisco here.
On their property.
And so this is just going to be
another asset here in the Community
that they all work together on.
Certainly, you know,
what's interesting about this
is as the story goes.
For this project, a,
one of its kind project,
they were looking really not
just anywhere in the country,
but some place in the world to launch this,
whether it's going to be United
States or in another country,
and decided that North Texas may be a
good fit that they wanted to look at.
And they happen to be driving down the
tollway and see the big iconic fields
boxes that are sitting out there.
So feed me.
That worked apparently,
because they're like, what is that?
Maybe we need to look into that.
And so we're thankful that they did.
And we're thankful for those
fields boxes certainly.
But here in Frisco,
certainly all of you can
see why they chose Frisco.
Frisco is known for being family friendly.
It's it's known for being innovative,
being kind of first in
leaders and everything.
We've been named the number
one place to raise a family,
the number one place to raise an
athlete to host a business and the
number one place in America to live.
And here in Frisco,
we played a win.
And so I'm still upset that we were only
named the number 5 happiest City in America.
And so if we're going to be on a list,
I wanna be #1.
So in my mind,
Universal Kids Frisco is gonna
get Frisco to be the number one
happiest place in America to live.
So with that, this is a great fit
for our city, for our community.
You know, it may be my grandchildren who
are enjoying this one day and certainly
many of your children and grandchildren,
but I'm behalf of our City Council,
our leaders here in Frisco and really
the entire city that's going to create
lasting memories here in new new Park.
Let me just say thank you for believing
in Frisco, thank you for investing,
and thank you for selecting Frisco, TX.
For your new home,
congratulations and welcome.
So that will conclude our presentation today.
I did hear in the backroom that
once these projects are announced,
then they start getting all kinds of
feedback coming from all directions on
what themes should be in their park.
So I'm going to be advocating
for Mario brothers,
that's kind of my favorite and minions.
So if you have a favorite, Kung Fu panda,
puss in boots, whatever your favorite is,
they're all ears here today. So.
Thank you again for joining us.