The Latest on Universal’s Plans for a Kid’s Resort in Frisco

After two years of analyzing the pixels of a conceptual rendering for the future Universal Kids Resort in Frisco, the region has a clearer picture of what the $550 million project could become.

The 97-acre park development at the intersection of the Dallas North Tollway and Panther Creek Parkway will feature themed mini-parks centered around Shrek, Puss in Boots, Trolls, Gabby’s Dollhouse, SpongeBob SquarePants, Minions, and Jurassic World. That includes a swamp-themed playground in the Shrek land, a sensory garden in the Puss and Boots area, and an immersive retail experience themed after Gabby’s Dollhouse.

The development, scheduled to open in 2026, will also include a 300-room hotel. 

Universal Destinations and Experiences bought the land shortly before announcing the project in 2023. Park construction soft-launched later that year. Universal partnered with Balfour Beatty Construction and Gensler on the project. “We recently completed work on the third story of our onsite hotel, and we continue to build out the landscaping surrounding the perimeter of the park,” a spokesperson for Universal Destinations and Experiences told D CEO.

The development, focused on young families and children, is the first of its kind for the entertainment company. The brand has other venues in Orlando, Los Angeles, Beijing, Singapore, Japan, and Las Vegas.

“We’re used to tourism here,” Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney told D CEO. Frisco is the home of the Dallas Cowboys, the PGA of America, FC Dallas, the National Soccer Hall of Fame, the National Videogame Museum, two Omni hotels, the Stonebriar Center, and—for three years and counting—the Academy of Country Music Awards. In all, the city attracts roughly 7.5 million visitors annually.

That number will likely grow. Zoning deliberations in 2023 for the Universal project centered largely around traffic predictions—the city even published a document comparing Universal’s projected traffic amounts to H-E-B, Costco, and Toyota Stadium in an effort to assuage locals’ worries about congestion in the area. And there are other massive developments on the way, including Firefly Park, Fields West (the city’s answer to Legacy West) and the rest of the expansive Fields development.  

Frisco’s government has future tourism plans of its own. In May, the city will ask voters to approve using $160 million in municipal funding for an arts center designed to attract Broadway shows. The proposed center would include a 2,800-seat large hall and a 300 to 400-seat community hall. Frisco is partnering with Prosper ISD for the approximately $300 million Frisco Center for the Arts, which is planned to be located on six acres at the southwest corner of US 380 and the DNT. 

“The PGA is great, and certainly created the gravitational pull up to the area,” Cheney said of the city’s northern corridor. “Now, Universal Kids is a part of that as well. And then if we can add the Center for the Arts up there, then it’s going to really help those commercial developments be successful.” 

Universal Kids Resort is just another notch on the belt for a city that has developed what Cheney describes as a portfolio of family-centric entertainment destinations, including Kidzania and the National Videogame Museum.  

As northern Texas school districts like Prosper and Celina ISDs face hypersonic enrollment growth, others, like Fort Worth, Lewisville, and Plano ISDs, are reporting declining enrollment numbers—and have pursued school closures as a result. In the face of those headwinds, Cheney says Frisco’s goal is to be a “full lifecycle” city with a pipeline of families with children. He thinks developments like Universal should help with that.

“It’s going to make Frisco a destination for young families in this area for a long time,” he says.