Multiple buyers make offers to purchase land owned by SeaWorld/Busch Gardens
United Parks, formerly known as SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, has “received multiple offers” from parties interested in purchasing excess land near its portfolio of SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, and Sesame Place theme parks.
Photo by Matt Roseboom
United Parks & Resorts CEO Marc Swanson shared details on the potential sales during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Feb. 26, 2026.
United evaluating multiple proposals for excess land
Swanson said the company owns 2,000 acres of lands among its seven U.S. properties, with 400 of those acres undeveloped and potentially available for various future purposes.
“We have received multiple sale-leaseback proposals that we are currently evaluating,” Swanson said, “and have active discussions with various partners on hotel development, timeshare development, residential development, and other commercial development on our owned property.”
Photo courtesy of United Parks
Swanson did not mention specific buyers by name.
This initiative of selling excess land for potential hotel use is a separate effort from United’s goals to “integrate hotels into our portfolio,” which the company reiterated on the Feb. 26 call remains a priority. United does not currently offer onsite hotels for theme park guests.
This isn’t the first time Swanson has mentioned United Parks’ excess land and its potential. The CEO emphasized in previous earnings calls, as he did today, his feelings that the company’s control of these land parcels is not “fully appreciated by the public markets.” Today was, however, the most detailed Swanson has been thus far in mapping out what this land could potentially turn into.
“The point is, there’s a lot of valuable real estate and there’s multiple ways to monetize that,” Swanson said.
Photo courtesy of United Parks
Keep reading to see the full quotes from both Swanson and the United Parks slides presentation on this topic.
New rides in 2026 at SeaWorld & Busch Gardens parks
Looking to inside the theme park gates rather than beyond them, United Parks’ portfolio has several upcoming attractions opening in 2026:
- Barracuda Strike, a suspended roller coaster at SeaWorld San Antonio
- Lion & Hyena Ridge, a new animal habitat at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
- Verbolten: Forbidden Turn, a reimagining of a favorite indoor/outdoor roller coaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg
- SeaQuest: Legends of the Deep, a new indoor dark ride at SeaWorld Orlando
Full transcripts of land purchase remarks
United Parks & Resorts’ PowerPoint presentation for its Feb. 26, 2026, quarterly earnings call included the following information.
Over ~2,000 acres of owned land with over ~400 acres available for future development
Multiple Avenues for Monetization
- Received indications of interest from multiple sale-leaseback counterparties and engaged active dialogue regarding our options
- In discussion with various partners about partnering to develop hotel timeshare projects on our land
- Evaluating inbounds around co-developing our excess land into residential, entertainment, and other commercial projects
- Received multiple offers for purchase of our excess land
Orlando, FL (418 Owned Acres)
- Aquatica
- SeaWorld
- Discovery Cove
San Antonio, TX (415 owned acres)
- Aquatica
- SeaWorld
San Diego, CA (66 Owned / 190 Leased Acres)
- Sesame Place
- SeaWorld
Tampa, FL (362 Owned Acres)
- Adventure Island
- Busch Gardens
Williamsburg, VA (654 Owned Acres)
- Water Country
- Busch Gardens
Langhorne, PA (55 owned acres)
- Sesame Place
Marc Swanson, CEO of United Parks & Resorts, shared the following remarks during the company’s Feb. 26, 2026, quarterly earnings call:
We have over 2,000 acres of owned real estate, including over 400 acres of undeveloped land. We estimate the replacement cost of our parks to be over $10 billion, or about 2.5 times our current enterprise value. In other words, our current enterprise value is less than half the replacement cost of our assets.
While the public markets may not be appropriately recognizing the value of our assets, others are. We have received multiple sale-leaseback proposals that we are currently evaluating and have active discussions with various partners on hotel development, timeshare development, residential development, and other commercial development on our owned property.
There’s nothing more to share on this today and we will update you when we do have more to share.
Later during the Q&A portion of the call, an investor asked the following question:
A quick follow-up on the land monetization initiative: I think you spoke in particular a bit more about sale-lease back interest. Can you just talk about how you weigh that in terms of how compelling that potential opportunity is? It doesn’t seem like it could be mutually exclusive necessarily with developing the land in other ways either.
In response to this question, Swanson said:
The point we’ve been making now for several quarters, and I think we leaned into it even more today is: We have significant opportunities with our real estate. It could be a sale-leaseback, it could be developing that land into shopping, housing, entertainment, whatever it may be, hotels.
The point is, there’s a lot of valuable real estate and there’s multiple ways to monetize that.
We’ll work obviously with our board. I think you’re very familiar with the makeup of our board. We’re obviously more than 50% owned by a private equity firm and we get a lot of guidance and council from them and the rest of the board on how to use cash. I’m confident, working together with the board, we’ll come to the right conclusions on how best to monetize our assets.
I think the exciting thing is people recognize the value — maybe not everybody because it’s not, I don’t think, fully appreciated by the public markets — but the people that we talk to or talk to our board, they see that value. That’s what we were trying to point out in some of the slides [in the quarterly earnings presentation].
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