Comterra Principal James Nashman told GrowthSpotter he\u2019s listening to other offers.\n<\/p>\n
He said he won\u2019t rule out the possibility White Castle will end up putting a restaurant on the property, which is at the northeastern corner of Universal Boulevard and McKenna Drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey for now pulled out of our site, but they\u2019ve done it on some other sites, as well in Florida, and that\u2019s recent,\u201d Nashman said. \u201cGroups 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\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Comterra has brought in a new partner,\u00a0Chicago-based SRE Holdings LLC<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThat parcel to me is the only thing left in that immediate corridor; everything\u2019s been taken,\u201d said Nashman, whose venture Destination Shoppes built the nearby 7-Eleven and Chick-fil-A. His company, ComTerra, has built 13 Publix-anchored shopping centers over the years, most of them in Florida.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Calls and emails to White Castle\u2019s<\/a> corporate headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, and others associated with the company seeking information about the fast-food chain\u2019s future plans in Central Florida were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0 chain has long inspired slavish devotion for its 2-inch-square, griddled-and-steamed burgers, long peddled with the slogan \u201cBuy \u2019em by the sack.\u201d<\/p>\n The location in O-Town West, at 11595 Daryl Carter Parkway, opened in 2021 and immediately became the company\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n In August, the company opened a 3,220-square-foot restaurant in Clermont at 4551 Collina Terrace in the Plaza Collina shopping center<\/a> on the north side of State Road 50.<\/p>\n 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 area White Castle will open this summer<\/a> in Daytona Beach.<\/p>\n Brian Bell can be reached at\u00a0bbell@orlandosentinel.com<\/a>. Have a tip about Central Florida development? Email Newsroom@GrowthSpotter.com<\/a>. Follow GrowthSpotter on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the hottest retail sites in Orlando is back on the market after White Castle backed out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,3683,28,1975,9571,2174,114,1335,139,141,140,1976,480,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-154225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-clermont","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-kissimmee","12":"tag-lake-buena-vista","13":"tag-lake-county","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-orange-county","16":"tag-orlando","17":"tag-orlando-headlines","18":"tag-orlando-news","19":"tag-osceola-county","20":"tag-real-estate","21":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Plans](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770981727_198_wc0725.jpg\")
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.\u00a0 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)<\/p>\n