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Will the Triangle ever get an amusement park or


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Hi everyone,

I've been lurking on these boards for quite some time, but this thread finally enticed me to come out of hiding and make my first post (EDIT: Looks like I actually posted once before. Don't even remember doing that!). I am pretty into amusement parks. I actually run the message board Carowinds Connection. For everyone in this area that likes roller coasters, get excited, because Kings Dominion and Carowinds are both building massive new coasters next year. It's too bad though that Busch Gardens is removing one (Big Bad Wolf). I'm not sure I'll ever get over that...

Onto the current topic, though. Living in Raleigh (which I absolutely love), I am often frustrated about this, although it is nice having 3 good parks a day trip away. A few weeks ago after reading this entry over at Dana's blog, I decided to do a little research. I'll copy and paste what I wrote on there:

I looked at the top 50 metro areas in the country by population to see which ones had a significant amusement park within a 1.5 hour drive (using Google Maps). "Significant amsuement park" is subjective, but essentially my requirement was that it needed to have at least one roller coaster that was more than a cookie cutter children's coaster.

45 of the top 50 metro areas have an amusement park within around an hour and a half. The ones that do not are:

-DETROIT: closest park is Cedar Point (2 hours)

-NASHVILLE: closest park is Dollywood (3.5 hours), but Nashville did have Opryland, a major park which closed in 1997

-JACKSONVILLE: closest parks are the millions in Orlando (2.25 hours)

-MEMPHIS: closest park is Magic Springs, but Memphis had Libertyland which closed in 2005

-RALEIGH: closest parks are Carowinds, Kings Dominion, and Busch Gardens, all around 3 hours away

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Welcome Dale. Great post.

I knew it had to be a rare situation for a major metro area to not have a real amusement park within short distance.

I can see the economy hitting multi-day parks, but not a park that's in our backyard. I wish some group would try something around here.

Families are desperate for entertainment options around here. You can only go to the Natural Science museum so many times. I remember when the transit group trying to hype up the rail plan brought in a transit train to Cary and they had thousands of families and kids show up to ride a mile down and back.

The mural on Sorrell's in Cary that shows a transit train might as well show a time machine or hover cars because all are equally as likely unfortunately.

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After at first thinking a 3 hour radius was a good target market, I realized I had not considered the size the park matters a great deal. This whole topic mirrors very closely considerations when placing shopping malls, and discussing whether you want a regional mall or one that serves a more local population. I now wonder if a smaller one would work here. I also wonder if the State fair being here somehow influences this in the negative...

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After at first thinking a 3 hour radius was a good target market, I realized I had not considered the size the park matters a great deal. This whole topic mirrors very closely considerations when placing shopping malls, and discussing whether you want a regional mall or one that serves a more local population. I now wonder if a smaller one would work here. I also wonder if the State fair being here somehow influences this in the negative...
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I agree that a smaller park may make more sense here than a Six Flags or Carowinds-sized one.

The NC mountains has several smaller parks that may be a more appropriate size for us. Tweetsie in Boone. Ghost Town in the Sky in Maggie Valley. Santaland in Cherokee. (And does anyone else remember Beech Mountain's Land of Oz?) Granted, they all have had financial difficulty at one time or the other, but none of them are located next to a metro area with about 2 million people either!

Something in that size category could work as a local theme park aimed towards the Triangle and nearby areas....and could grow in time. Dollywood, for example, started off as little old Silver Dollar City, which was smaller than Tweetsie in its first several years, and built up over a period of two decades.

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Something in that size category could work as a local theme park aimed towards the Triangle and nearby areas....and could grow in time. Dollywood, for example, started off as little old Silver Dollar City, which was smaller than Tweetsie in its first several years, and built up over a period of two decades.
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If a major theme park builder were to build a new theme park in NC, it would likely be in the Greensboro area for several reasons. First the Triad's central location which would draw people from south central Virginia, the Triangle as well as people from Charlotte despite the fact that Carowinds is down there. A themepark in Greensboro would not be too close to Carowinds. Consider how close Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion are in Virginia. Secondly, the interstate infrastructure in Greensboro. I-40, I-85, I-73/74, I-785/hwy 29 all intersect in Greensboro. Thirdly Greensboro already has a major water park. Theme park builders want to have water parks nearby. If a themepark builder were considering Greensboro, they would buy out Wet'n Wild Emerald Pointe. Its much cheaper to buy a water park than to build one from scratch. Add to the fact that Wet'n Wild Emerald Pointe is one of the top 12 most popular water parks in America and the 10th largest water park in the country, that would be an added bonus for any theme park. Greensboro and the Triad already have a few tourist destination nearby as well. The NC ZOO, Old Salem, the Grandover Resort in Greensboro to name a few. But Greensboro has been considered at least twice by thempark builders. In fact land in Greensboro (where the Grandover Resort is today) was being scouted for a Busch Brewery and theme park. When the land deal went sour, the brewery and theme park were built in Williamsburg, Va instead. The water park in Greensboro was built less than a mile away from that site and it just so happens that the working name for the water park before it open was "Aqua Gardens" like "Busch Gardens". The second time there was a proposal to build a Six Flags regional theme park on the Guilford/Forsyth County line back in 1998. But that proposal would have only happened if the Triad had secured a major league baseball team back in the late 90s when the Twins were considering a move to North Caroilna. The major league ballpark and Six Flags would have been one large complex.

One thing that does seem to be new in some major cities around the world are downtown amusements. There is the big ferris wheel in London. It wont be long before we start seeing "urban amusement parks" pop up in big cities around the country. They would be much smaller than suburban themeparks but would still have all the chills and thrills found in every theme park across the country. In fact a similar idea was being proposed for downtown Greensboro but the proposal fell through because it was difficult to buy the land (would have taken up 3 city blocks or more) and it was just a complex project. It was a $300 million mega project called the Greensboro Triumph Center which would have included a 20-story 4 star luxury hotel with a convention center, 18-story office tower, residential, entertainment complex with rides, virtual rides, House of Blues type venue, cosmic bowling alley and skating rink. Disney is considering a similar idea with urban amusement destinations. It was really bold for Greensboro and would have had Disney/Las Vegas style entertainment but it just may have been too bold for Greensboro and it was a really big deal because it involved a local developer, an unidentified Orlando, Florida development company and international investors. If the project had happened a few developers would have built a couple of hotels as well. The project was so big, the developers were looking at a 2 to 3 hour drive radius around Greensboro. This is something that may happen in Raleigh if this idea really takes root around the country. With the poor economy, any kind of idea like this is being put on the back burner. No bank is going to loan a developer $300 million for a downtown amusement park these days.

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It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. Just going off the top of my head, Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom (which is a pretty terrible park) in Louisville is at the site of the fairgrounds, and the rides there become part of the fair for two weeks each year.
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My implicit point a few posts ago was that an amusement park in Raleigh would undercut the Fair (if you can go on a ferris wheel anytime, why is struggling through Fair crowds worth your time?...I know I know, the Fair experience, but just saying...) and hence there may be political reasons for why we would never see one here....unless the Fair piggy backed on it somehow...

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My idea for a park location was somewere in the Efland/Mebane area between the Triangle and Triad.

Being the geek that I am, a location on the theoretical NCRR Raleigh-Greensboro commuter line would be best. Just browsing GIS and google maps, my idea for a precise location is sandwiched between the railroad and I-40 at the Buckhorn Road exit, between Efland and Miles. That would be Orange County, near the 8-lane 40/85, as well as the NCRR; also near both the Triangle and the triad. That land is probably of limited value since it is sandwiched between the RR and Interstate with no direct road access. so I can't imagine acquisition would be too difficult.

Designing a theme park to have a rail stop would be a bit tricky though, as the platform needs to be close enough to an entrance to be a short walk. A bit tough to do when there needs to be so much parking as well.

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I don't know how I ended up on this thread, but...

Amusement parks were far easier to build back in the 20th century when land was available in strategic places. Carowinds was considered a minor miracle, being as it was sort of off the beaten track of the big tourist streams, and not all that far from the original Six Flags Over Georgia. But Charlotte has always been that way. Business people there tend to think big, and out of the box. And so it happened. Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens were both placed in Virginia, but not to draw locals. They were, and are, highly dependent on traffic from the DC area, and Florida and Williamsburg tourists from the Northeast. Another park on I-95 might work, but it's a bit dicier since you have no other supporting attractions in that corridor within the state.

As for South of the Border, consider this. The largest growing demographic in the US is the Hispanic market. And given that it is virtually the only demographic in America with a positive birth rate, figure that anywhere from a third to a half of families traveling between New York and Florida with children will be Latin, if not now, then within 10 years. Now, to a white guy from South Carolina, South of the Border might elicit an endless stream of guffaws, but to a Latino family you might as well be sticking your middle finger up at them. The whole theme is patronizing and insulting to most Hispanics, but particularly to Mexicans to whom it is aimed at -- the largest subgroup in the Hispanic category, and by far the largest component of the Latin travel market. For those of you who think this is being too PC, or hypersensitive, so be it. But analyzed on a financial basis, it's amazing the place is still open.

Personally, I think RDU would be much better served, as I've always said, playing to its strengths. Forget the land hungry amusement parks. And please don't screw over Dix with something campy like that. The Triangle has a tech-base that is second to few, if any. I think a far better model for the Triangle would be something in the line of Huntsville's Space Camp, or VR-driven amusement centers full of things like flight simulators, immersion gaming, animation (like the robotic history lessons at Disney), possibly with a few physically oriented thrill rides such as indoor "skydiving", or bungie slings. I would think that with a college population of near a hundred thousand in the area, you would not only have the market for it, but also the tech staff to maintain those types of things -- if not build the attractions locally yourselves.

Raleigh was boring in the extreme for me as a kid, and I imagine that is still true to some degree for many kids there today. Not so much for adults, but to a teenager it is a tear-jerker. Especially to those who don't have the means to hop on a charter bus somewhere in the summer to escape. But then again, Carowinds after two or three hours isn't all that great either. And standing in line for an hour for one coaster ride is quite overrated. An educated populace should have more challenging stuff -- not another Dollywood.

But having said all that, you still have beaches two hours away to swim in, and mountains to ski on in the other direction, so it's not all bad. So you're still way ahead of places like Ohio and Missouri, no matter how many amusement parks they have.

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.....Amusement parks were far easier to build back in the 20th century when land was available in strategic places. Carowinds was considered a minor miracle, being as it was sort of off the beaten track of the big tourist streams, and not all that far from the original Six Flags Over Georgia. .....
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M...Thanks for the links. Yeah, I remember the big yellow Border Line that ran through the park (and even through the turnstiles if I remember correctly). I wasn't knocking Carowinds at all, nor was I making any assessment for why it worked or didn't. In fact, I was glowing in my praise for Charlotte and the visionary acumen that put Carowinds there in the first place -- and with so many other features that Charlotte can rightfully brag about. My own opinion is that a Carowinds-like project would have been "Plensa'd" right away (see my diatribe in the Dix Park blog for that one) as not feasible, or somehow "inappropriate" if it had been broached in Raleigh.

No my whole point really was two. One, for Raleighites to cherish what they have (daytrip freeway access to beaches and mountains), and two, if you're in need of amusement, create something new, and something nobody has. It is possible, don't you think?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Seems to me the most realistic scenario for a theme park near the Triangle would be for Emerald Point to be expanded to include a non water park area with a few rides and roller coasters, probably on a smaller scale of Carowinds and/or Kings Dominion. Greensboro isn't too far away from the Triangle (hour from Durham, hour and a 1/2 from Raleigh), and if they could snap up some land adjacent to the park it could potentially work. I doubt that would ever happen but Greensboro would definately be closer then Charlotte or Richmond...

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Just like the area is underserved by not having lights on our freeways, better public transportation options, etc.

Until the taxpayers step up and demand better from Triangle leaders, we will continue to be underserved in key areas. Afterall, what does our tax dollars REALLY entitle us to?

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