The family behind Westgate Resorts has quietly slipped back into the heart of International Drive, scooping up the former Sleuths Mystery Dinner Show property at a discount and instantly reigniting the “what’s next?” buzz along one of Orlando’s hottest tourist stretches.
The deal
According to Orlando Business Journal, the buyers are the sons of Westgate Resorts’ founder, and they landed the site at a price below the earlier asking figures. The property at 8267 International Drive was the longtime home of Sleuths Mystery Dinner Shows and spans about five acres in the middle of the tourist corridor.
Orlando Business Journal reports that since the sale, developers have already started circling, pitching everything from five-star resort concepts to surf-style wave pool attractions. For now, the brothers have not publicly tipped their hand on which direction they are leaning.
From listing to sale
The building first hit the market in early 2025 with an asking price of about $11.9 million, and Sleuths took its final Orlando bow on November 4, 2025, after more than three decades operating on I-Drive. WFTV covered the listing and the broker’s view that a hotel would be the highest and best use for the site. Meanwhile, WDBO reported on the theater’s shutdown and the owners’ decision to sell after decades as a staple of the corridor’s dinner-show scene.
Developers circling
As Orlando Business Journal notes, developers have floated big-vision ideas for the property that range from luxury hotels to new experiential attractions. The parcel’s size and its visibility on I-Drive make it one of the last larger, development-ready tracts on this stretch of the corridor, which helps explain why the interest picked up so quickly.
Why I-Drive matters
Industry watchers point to the site’s proximity to ICON Park, the convention corridor, and recent theme park expansion activity as key reasons it is drawing so much attention. Listing broker Charles Rudis of RE/MAX 200 told WFTV that there is still “room for more” hotels on I-Drive, a reality that makes a discounted purchase by a hospitality-connected family look especially strategic.
For now, the former Sleuths property sits in a kind of suspense, with new ownership in place but no public development plan on the table. Locals and industry insiders will be watching county filings and permit activity for the first clear clue about what the Siegel sons decide to build. Whatever eventually rises there will not just fill a vacant lot on I-Drive, it will help shape a very visible corner of Orlando’s tourist economy.
