The Kentucky State Fair Board will be asked next month to consider a $50 million bond issue to help upgrade and reopen the Kentucky Kingdom amusement park next to the Kentucky Exposition Center.
Developer Ed Hart, who was designated in May by the fair board as the park's preferred operator, said his proposal calls for park revenue to pay off the bonds over the next 20-plus years, covering an annual debt of about $3million.
He said the park's reopening is dependent on a public-private partnership. He described the state's contribution as an investment in a community facility worth about $200million.
Among Hart's plans are spending $20million to add a major ride and to double the size of the water park.
“My goal is to see Kentucky Kingdom flourish again, and it can. It will pay for itself,” said Hart, who headed a group that owned Kentucky Kingdom from 1988-97. He sold the park in 1997, for about $80million, to Six Flags, which closed it early this year.
Six Flags has filed for bankruptcy in Delaware. The court is expected soon to approve agreements with the fair board under which Six Flags would end its obligations for the park.
In an interview earlier this week, Hart said he will submit a business plan and a proposed lease for operating the park when the fair board meets in October.
Fair board president Harold Workman said the bond issue and the investment in the park make sense, but would require General Assembly approval in 2011.
He noted that a new state-funded economic impact study found that the return on the investment would be “pretty significant, a little better than I thought it might be.”
The $50,000 study done by the AECOM consulting firm and paid for by the fair board and the Kentucky Tourism, Arts & Heritage Cabinet, found that revenue from a reopened Kentucky Kingdom would be around $11million and include more than $1million in annual lease payments from Hart, new tax revenue and money taken in by hotels and restaurants near the fairgrounds.
The study said the park's reopening would eventually create about 1,200 jobs, primarily hospitality positions and some construction employment.
Hart said he is proposing that the state spend $8million of the bond money to add a “marquee” roller coaster. (The park plans to keep six existing coasters.)
Another $12million would go to expand Hurricane Bay water park, which was renamed Splashwater Kingdom, doubling its size and adding 16 water slides along with four new water towers. Other improvements would include a wave lagoon and a quarter-mile adventure river.
Hart's proposal calls for most of the rest of the bond money to cover upgrades of park infrastructure.
Both Hart and Workman said the goal is to have the park reopened by Memorial Day 2011.
Hart pledged the reopened park will have free parking, other good deals such as free use of inner tubes, and $1 for all drinks. He said the cost of admission and season passes would be “very competitive” with other regional theme parks.
He projected that the park would draw at least 1 million paid visitors in its first full year. Some of that gain would be achieved by sharply increasing advertising in regional cities, such as Cincinnati and Nashville, Hart said.
He is proposing an initial annual lease payment to the fair board of around $1.2million. The lease would let Hart rent about 50 acres at the expo center for theme park facilities, with nearly all of the land outside of Ring Road.
The proposed lease also would permit Kentucky Kingdom to use about 20 now-vacant acres for parking in the old Ashton Adair neighborhood owned by the fair board. A new park entrance would be developed off Phillips Lane, west of Gate 1.
Hart said the business plan will call for him to set aside a “significant sum” every year — a figure he declined to disclose — for investing in new rides and other park improvements.
Chad Carlton, Mayor Jerry Abramson's spokesman, said the theme park would be a major job creator and have a positive impact on the region's economy. “We very much would like to see (the park) reopened as soon as is practical.”
Hart already has paid $3million to the fair board, which under a deal between the board and Six Flags, used $2.35million to give to Six Flags to acquire about 20 acres of amusement park land that Six Flags owns outside the road circling the exposition center. The rest of the $3million will go for maintenance, security and other costs. The state deal with Six Flags is subject to expected bankruptcy court approval.
However, it seems that it will not open until 2012:
Kentucky Kingdom will not be open next summer, as originally hoped, but instead will aim for a 2012 reopening.
The delay is tied to the need to get the General Assembly’s approval of bonds that would be issued to finance improvements at the amusement park, which was abruptly abandoned by the Six Flags system earlier this year, in proper order.
The State Fair Board intends to recommend that the 2011 legislature, which convenes in January, authorize the sale of an estimated $50 million tax-exempt bond issue to pay for the upgrades, including at least two major new attractions and an expanded water park.
The state would have little financial risk with the bonds and Harold Workman, fair board president, said, “Every public official we have met with supports the park’s reopening” at the Kentucky Exposition Center.
The bond debt, likely to be around $3 million a year for 20 or more years, would be retired out of revenue generated by Kentucky Kingdom, which will be operated by the Kentucky Kingdom Redevelopment Co. headed by investor Ed Hart.
Hart had been scheduled to present a preliminary business plan for the revamped park’s operation to the fair board at a meeting Thursday. But the fair board postponed the presentation and gave Hart until March 31 to refine the plan, to negotiate a lease for the park and to give the legislature time to consider the bonds. The fair board owns about 60 acres where the park will operate.
Hart declined to comment beyond a news release issued jointly with the fair board after the agency’s meeting.
Hart said recently that he had at least a preliminary business plan ready for the fair board’s consideration. Hart said in the prepared statement that “we share in the disappointment that the park will not be ready to open next spring.…We will certainly do our best to bring Kentucky Kingdom back as soon as is reasonably possible.”
Workman told the board that all signs point to the park’s resumption of full operation in 2012.
He said in an interview that the board initially held out hope to have the park open perhaps as early as summer 2011, because it hadn’t ruled out financing the park’s improvements through conventional lending sources. But he said prevailing commercial interest rates are prohibitive to large borrowing.
He also acknowledged that the fair board approached the city about issuing tax-exempt bonds for the park’s makeover but that city officials indicated that they felt they already had a “full plate.” In addition, the park is on state, not city, property.
Hart said in the statement that keeping an interim agreement with the fair board in place for as long as five more months will give him time to fix more precisely the costs of repair and replacement of the park rides, buildings, equipment and infrastructure.
“Kentucky Kingdom is like a small city. It takes time to prepare it for opening,” Hart said in the statement.
Hart previously operated Kentucky Kingdom throughout most of the 1990s and sold the park to Six Flags for about $80 million in 1997.
In an interview, Workman said federal bankruptcy court in Delaware has approved all the transactions between the fair board and Six Flags, which is in bankruptcy proceedings. The approvals give the fair board clear title to all the remnants of Kentucky Kingdom. The board has agreed, for now, to share the ownership of the rides and property with Hart to provide collateral for $3 million that he has paid the fair board.
The board used $2.35 million of the payment was given to Six Flags so the fair board would acquire about 20 acres of amusement park land that the company owned outside the road circling the exposition center. The rest of the money is going for maintenance, security and other costs.
Hart’s preliminary business plan predicts that the park would draw at least 1 million paid visitors in its first full year, with Hart intending to promote the park across the region. He has proposed an annual lease payment to the fair board of around $1.2 million.
Hart intends to develop a new entrance into Kentucky Kingdom off Phillips Lane and to offer free parking rather than have patrons pay $8 to park at the fairgrounds.
The business plan calls for spending $20.3 million of the $50 million from the proposed bond issue for new attractions, including about $8 million for a new roller coaster. The rest of the budget calls for: $9.3 million to repair existing rides; $3.8 million for site work and water park expansion; $2.4 million for new buildings; $2.1 million for repair and relocation of existing rides; $2.1 million to replace existing equipment; $2.3 million for a new parking lot off Phillips Lane; $2.4 million for repair of existing buildings; and most of the rest for contractors, demolition, contingencies, landscaping and signs.
A recent state-funded study found that economic impact of a reopened Kentucky Kingdom could be about $11 million a year, including tax revenue and money taken in by hotels and restaurants near the fairgrounds.
Workman said he is confident that the park’s economic benefits “will make a strong case for funding, when we approach the legislature in January.”
“We have made great progress” since Six Flags walked away from its long-term lease early this year, Workman said.
“A lot of issues have been worked out, and the board is committed to reopening Kentucky Kingdom. But there is still a lot of work to do,” said fair board chairman Ron Carmicle.
Link
Now, something very nice is coming out of this. From Screamscape:
Park News - (11/17/10) A few new videos (five I think) have been added to the Kentucky Kingdom YouTube page, where they answer a few more questions about rides and the project’s status. One question addresses the intended new use of the 10 acres used for the old entrance (for bigger/taller rides!), as well as questions about Chang, Quake and Twisted Twins. Oh… and Chang’s replacement is promised to be an “equal if not better than Chang”. The old Chang site will however be used to expand the waterpark.
Twisted Twins, which may have it’s name changed back to Double Trouble perhaps (the intended name Ed Hart had for it) will undergo a $3 million refurbishment and reprofile, as well as have brand new trains purchased for it.
(11/15/10) According to the official Kentucky Kingdom facebook page, the new park operators do plan on restoring and reopening the Twisted Twins wooden coaster. In a public response to a question about that coaster, the official answer was, “At this point, our plan calls to completely renovate it and re-open the dual wooden coasters!”
(11/13/10) Kentucky Kingdom has launched an all new website at KentuckyKingdom.com. While there isn’t much to see, perhaps the most interesting thing is that they have put a picture of a Maurer X-Car coaster right on the front page. A hint about the park’s intended new coaster project perhaps?
So with the replacement of Chang said to be better than it... hmmm? And rumor has it, they may reprofile Twisted Twins and rename it Double Trouble. That's great news! =D
I'm still waiting to see what this new coaster may be...
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