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I-Drive’s Mercado to be leveled in September

June 28, 2007 at 10:36 am · Filed under Travel

International Drive’s Mercado shopping-and-dining center has a rendezvous with the wrecking ball in September as its owners prepare to replace the failed center with a 350,000-square-foot complex of retail and restaurants.

Unicorp National Developments Inc. of Orlando plans to level the Mercado on Sept. 6 to begin construction of The Square, designed for a mixture of upscale shops and eateries.

I see this as a good thing. The Mercado was cool when I first visited it years ago. My last visit wasn’t so cool with the place being a bit run-down and mostly empty. Their main attraction, Titanic, is supposed to be getting a better home in the new center. I’m not sure if it will close or relocate in the meantime.

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Posted by Matt on June 28, 2007 at 10:36 am · Permalink

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2 Comments »

George Horsman wrote @ July 11th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

Lets hope, the developers retain an area for evening entertainment in the new complex. My family and i, along with millions of other tourists, have enjoyed some excellent evenings in The Mercado, over the years.
For many years, The Mercado, was the main reason we came to I-Drive, now we tend to stay for a couple of nights, then drive over to the Gulf Coast, for the bulk of our holiday.
If a similar style of entertainment were to return, and was well promoted, then we would certainly be back, as i’m sure would many others.

George Horsman
England

John Dowson wrote @ July 31st, 2007 at 2:44 pm

We have booked a hotel close to the mercado in March 2008 purely for the nightly entertainment as we enjoyed our time ther in 2005. All we can hope is that the Square will be open by then with similar enterntainment.
John Dowson England