One of the hottest retail sites in Orlando is back on the market after White Castle backed out of plans to build a fifth Central Florida location near the entrance to Epic Universe.
The slider giant had initially filed plans to build a restaurant on Universal Boulevard in October 2024 and continued the permitting process throughout most of 2025, submitting revised plans and architectural drawings. At 6,450 square feet, it would have been the largest White Castle on the planet. But the company withdrew its application last October, leaving the landowner, Comterra Group, to search for a new user.
Comterra Principal James Nashman told GrowthSpotter he’s listening to other offers. “We’ve been approached by office tenants, we were approached by a significant health care tenant,” he said. “We’re primarily looking for retail-type tenants, and that could be QSRs (quick-service restaurants), it could be restaurants, it could be other retail groups.”
He said he can’t rule out the possibility White Castle will still end up putting a restaurant on the property, which is at the northeastern corner of Universal Boulevard and McKenna Drive.
“They for now pulled out of our site, but they’ve done it on some other sites, as well in Florida, and that’s recent,” Nashman said. “Groups like White Castle, it could be any number of factors. It could be priorities in other areas, it could be their capital allocation, it could be economics, you just don’t know.”
In the meantime, Comterra has brought in a new partner, Chicago-based SRE Holdings LLC, as majority owner and created a new holding company, Universal Retail D LLC. They closed on an internal transfer of the 2.61-acre site on Jan. 28 for $9 million.
Plans for a White Castle restaurant on land at the corner of Universal Avenue and McKenna Drive. filed in July 2025 with Orange County. The project was withdrawn in October 2025. The 2.6-acre parcel of land near the Epic Universe theme park was sold at the end of January for $9 million. (Courtesy of Orange County)
The land is situated directly next to the site of the future Marriott-branded W Hotel, which will deliver 400 hotel rooms, a 2,000-seat concert venue, and five bars and restaurants. The property is owned by Universal Retail C, LLC, an entity tied to SRE and Destination Shoppes.
“We’re still in it, but we’ve brought in our partner SRE. We’re partners with them on the other project, the Marriott,” said Nashman, whose venture Destination Shoppes built the nearby 7-Eleven and Chick-fil-A. “That parcel to me is the only thing left in that immediate corridor; everything’s been taken.”
Nashman said the preferred approach for the property is to ground lease it (with leasing handled by his partnership group) — but there have been discussions with his partners about a build-to-suit if it makes economic sense. His company, ComTerra, has built 13 Publix-anchored shopping centers over the years, most of them in Florida.
Calls and emails to White Castle’s corporate headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, and others associated with the company seeking information about the fast-food chain’s future plans in Central Florida were unsuccessful.
White Castle has over 375 locations in 14 states, with the chain mostly concentrated in the Midwest and New York City metropolitan area. The century-old chain has long inspired slavish devotion for its 2-inch-square, griddled-and-steamed burgers, long peddled with the slogan “Buy ’em by the sack.”
The location in O-Town West, at 11595 Daryl Carter Parkway, opened in 2021 and immediately became the company’s top-performing location, with about 5 million sliders sold in its first year. The restaurant also used a record-setting 40,000 eggs in one year for its breakfast sliders, more than enough to encircle Lake Eola.
In August, the company opened a 3,220-square-foot restaurant in Clermont at 4551 Collina Terrace in the Plaza Collina shopping center on the north side of State Road 50.
Additionally, a 3,200-square-foot White Castle with a double-drive-thru is under construction in Kissimmee next to Olde Town at the corner of West Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway and Holiday Trail. The Kissimmee location is scheduled to open this spring. A fourth castle will open this summer in Daytona Beach.
Brian Bell can be reached at bbell@orlandosentinel.com. Have a tip about Central Florida development? Email Newsroom@GrowthSpotter.com. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.