vacant building at USF - former use?

[cigar95]

I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this, and I apologize in advance.

Just past the west(?) end of the lake, over by the drive-in fast food place, there's a large building that houses no show or attraction that I know of. My first USF visit was early in 2004, and I don't think I've ever seen anything in there.

What was formerly in this building? It sure looks like it housed an attraction of some sort.

thanks, all.

 

[cleo]

Do you mean Mel's when you say the drive-in fast food place? There's a building that used to house SoundStage 54 just to your right if you're standing facing the front doors of Mels. Is that the building you mean?

If so, I think the last thing over there was the Universal Movie Cars (vehicles from Mummy, Jurassic Park III, etc). I could be wrong about that, though, since I remember cars outside, rather than inside, and something else may have been there since.

 

[cigar95]

Yeah, Mel's is it - but I was only about 80% sure of the name, so I didn't want to throw anyone off with any wrong info. But it's the building that's right next to that small city-park-like area right at the end of the lake.

Was Soundstage 54 the name of an old attraction, or just the name on the building?

Thanks.

 

[ChrisFL]

There was the building that is between Mel's and the New York area which housed the "Murder, She Wrote" attraction back when USF first opened, then it housed a Herc/Xena attraction then closed. It is sometimes used for an HHN house these days.

 

[VanishedPsycho]

Originally this building was home the Murder She Wrote Post Production show which had a very long run in the building staying open until well past the shows run ending on television. After that it closed briefly and then reopened as Herc & Xena which lasted about a year and then it closed as an attraction. It was used every now and then to preview new television shows before the actual tv seasons started and was also used as break space for some of the daily street entertainment. Year before last it was used to house one of the Halloween Horror Nights haunted houses and after that it was left empty once again. Last year the building was permanantly sealed by the internal safety people at Universal Orlando as it is no longer safe to have people in there on a daily basis. After the hurricanes of the past couple years various holes have opened up in the roof which allowed water over time to get into the interior walls which has in turn produced a great deal of mold. Combine that with general wear and tear from having a haunted house built and then quickly demolished inside and the building is no where near suitable to have an attraction inside until a great deal of renovation and repair has been done. Unfortunately for the location and size of the building the creative team has had a somewhat hard time over the past few years coming up with something to put in there that would be worthy of the cost of repairs. Some would say just tear the building down and build a new one but keep in mind this building is right in the middle of the park and is built from concrete and steel, tearing it down would require them to close off the walkways around it for a great deal of time. Unfortunately one of those areas that would need to be closed would be the main walkway between the building and Shrek 4D which would also force the closure of the Donkey photo op which people love and flock too all day. Amazing that with a building that big people line up to see a donkey puppet that only takes up a few small feet.

 

[ChrisFL]

^^ Interesting, never heard about the structural damage