Universal Unveils Plans for Expansion of Harry Potter Park ORLANDO, Fla. - Forget lines for the rides at Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter here. Nearly four years after opening, the attraction is still so popular that visitors routinely wait more than an hour just to get into a shop that sells wands. Moving to ease the gridlock - and shower its corporate parent, NBCUniversal, with more profits - Universal Orlando Resort on Thursday unveiled details for a huge Harry Potter expansion. There will be two major new rides, eight new stores (expect a second Ollivanders wand shop) and a sprawling Leaky Cauldron restaurant. A June opening is planned. Analysts estimate the cost to be $400 million. But a question hangs over Hogwarts: With no new books from J. K. Rowling and three years having elapsed since the last Harry Potter blockbuster, can the boy wizard really power this much added theme park capacity? Rivals like Disney and SeaWorld privately predict that the huge pop Universal got from adding Harry Potter in 2010 - a 30 percent year-on-year rise in attendance - will be followed by a much smaller bump this time. Theme park experts say Universal also faces the challenge of enhanced expectations among consumers: The first Harry Potter area was so compelling that it will be difficult to wow visitors a second time. Universal is confident about its plans. "One plus one will equal six," Mark Woodbury, president of Universal Creative, said of the original Wizarding World and the addition of Diagon Alley, one of the marquee spots in Ms. Rowling's fiction. Alan Gilmore, an art director for the Harry Potter films who has worked closely with Universal on design, said the theming of the new section "absolutely raises the bar." Still, Universal does seem to believe that potential visitors will need some convincing. On Wednesday the company offered a rare peek behind its creative curtain to reporters and bloggers, outfitting them in hard hats and steel-toed boots for a tour of the Diagon Alley construction site. The new area is "a maze crisscrossing itself," as Mr. Gilmore correctly described it, with narrow, winding streets lined by five-story buildings and a dramatic train trestle running overhead. The pièce de résistance is Gringotts Wizarding Bank, replete with goblins at work, a ride plunging through its dark vaults and a fire-breathing dragon on the roof. "We say that about the dragon, and people think we're goofing around," Mr. Woodbury said. We're not. This one blows a giant ball of fire. The goal is to not only please Harry Potter fans but to make cash registers ring. Aside from the mountain of added merchandise the resort hopes to sell, Universal Orlando - made up of two theme parks - has carefully designed the expansion to increase the sale of more expensive multipark and multiday tickets. Wizarding World opened in 2010 at Islands of Adventure, the newer of Universal's two parks. Diagon Alley is located in the abutting Universal Studios. To ride the Hogwarts Express connecting the two properties visitors must buy multipark tickets. The train will feature video "windows" filled with views of London and the British countryside; the experience will be different in each direction, Universal said. NBCUniversal has added attractions to its older Studios park over the last couple of years, including a "Despicable Me" simulator that turns riders into Minions. But the Universal Studios property is climbing out of a deep hole created by years of underinvestment by the resort's previous owners, the Blackstone Group and General Electric. There are still attractions themed around fading movies like "Twister" and characters like Betty Boop. Comcast's NBC Universal paid $1 billion in 2011 for full control of the resort. Islands of Adventure has annual attendance of about 8 million; Universal Studios has a bit more than 6 million. To compare, the Magic Kingdom at Disney World annually attracts 17.5 million guests, according to the Themed Entertainment Association. Theme parks, while vulnerable to the economy and requiring expensive and continuous upkeep, represent one of the few areas of growth outside of cable TV for entertainment companies. For the first nine months of last year, NBCUniversal recorded $747 million in operating cash flow, a 5.6 percent increase. In comparison, the company's broadcast television business had operating cash flow of $205 million, a 23.4 percent decline, according to financial filings. To maximize the marketing hype around Diagon Alley, Universal held back a number of details from its Thursday announcement. Will visitors enter by tapping on a brick wall as the characters do in Ms. Rowling's books? "It will be an authentic experience, but that's all I can say right now," Mr. Gilmore said. Will the entire land be filled with interactive elements that react to RFID-enabled wands, as some bloggers have predicted? Mr. Woodbury smiled and changed the subject. What will Knockturn Alley, a corridor where dark arts merchandise can be purchased, look like? "I'm trying to remember what I'm allowed to say and what I'm not allowed to say," said James Phelps, who played Fred Weasley in the movies and was on hand with other supporting cast members.