Hulk Hogan opened a beach shop in what was an old 7-11, with plans to sell the land and relocate to the complex. The owner of the Perkins restaurant franchise on the corner would only sell that restaurant if he agreed to buy their other locations, and that ballooned the cost. McDonalds and Popeyes both turned down selling their prime real estate to him for the project. He got on the tourism board to make these changes, and I think he ruffed a few too many feathers in trying to build up without putting in the consideration of the neighbors. The man behind all that was Josh Wallack, who has the Mango’s clubs in Miami and Orlando. And that was a sticking point with funding and who would’ve been responsible for construction and upkeep of that, and so on. An intersection that was one of the busiest in the area. At one point, they built a huge parking garage (which ended up getting built next to Mango’s) on the opposite side of International Drive, and were proposing in a massive circular pedestrian walkway around the outside of the traffic intersection (Sand Lake Rd and I-Drive). There were a lot of logistical problems, like parking. The coaster design changed a couple times, more dining and retail was added, and other attractions were planned, but not a lot of solid details were announced. On the other hand, Skyplex had gone through a bunch of changes while it was being designed, and the scope and focus of the project kept changing. I think I remember Unicorp (builders of the Icon Park) and other local developers were upset with it, too. On one hand, it’s lame that they tried to derail the project, because they were planning their own resort expansion with a new theme park in secret (later revealed as Epic Universe). They also sent reps to voice concerns about the project in committee meetings.

Universal actually went around with petitions, and tried to turn the public against the project. What do you guys think? It would have been amazing to see it in action and would have really put Florida on the map in a big way when it comes to rollercoasters but now it looks like we'll never see the ride come to fruition. Īccording to the Skyplex article on Wikipedia, it looks like investors were pulling out since they didn't trust the guy running the company, so maybe the company has shut down now? Only recent news I can find are a couple articles from February of this year where TripSavvy was talking about the ride/complex in the past-tense as if they had been canceled, but even they didn't truly know whether it was actually canceled or not. It was announced years ago in 2014 and apparently some of the parts were already made for the ride a few years ago and were in storage but have just been sitting there all this time apparently. It was this tall ass roller coaster that was going to be built in Orlando as part of a new complex called the Skyplex (or sometimes Skyplex 360) and was going to be the first ever 'Polercoaster' and the tallest roller coaster in the world.

Skyscraper roller coaster