Geauga Lake Big Dipper owner rep says potential buyers still interested

With the huge success of Zippin Pippin, I can see that more people may have an interest in this. Thinking positive :)

Round, and round and round she goes. Where she stops, no one knows...

Round and round, what goes around comes around, I'll tell you why!
(for Tina)

Back when Kat and Harold bought/didn't buy it, weren't they told Cedar Fair was demanding it be removed or demolished by June 2011? Whatever happened to that one?

I hear there was a lein involved with Kat and the other guy that attempted to buy it.

"Cedar Fair has been trying to sell all or part of the 550-acre property that straddles Bainbridge and Aurora since 2008. Cedar Fair has declined to discuss the status of its sale attempts."

What's there to discuss, nobody wants the property and it was a blunder to shut it down. Cedar Fair (aka Dick Kinzel) left it in an absolute mess and any interested party needs to have DEEP financial pockets to clean the place up, including removal of all the footers from the lake. In this economy it just doesn't make any financial sense when there is no demand for more retail, housing, office space, etc. in that part of Ohio.

Four years of just sitting there w/o maintenance has probably been somewhat rough on the coaster. Anyone seen it lately?

Calling it right now, conspiracy theory, Dick Kinzel shut down Geauga Lake, secretly bought the Big Dipper and will reconstruct it on his front lawn once he officially retires as CEO. ;)

Doesn't help that they shut the Geauga Lake side down right before the economy went bust. Any visions of turning Geauga Lake: the park into Geauga Lake: the lakeside condos pretty much evaporated at that point.

And you think Big Dipper has it bad, turn to the southern part of the state, where Screechin Eagle has now sat out 9 seasons.

Both are solid rides with proven designs, and yes the sucessful resoration of the Zippin Pippin may help spur an interest in woodie relocation/rebirth similar to that of the era that saved the Phoenix, Great Escape Comet and Lakemont Skyliner. Still, by now both rides have got to be in the "serious fixer upper" category. That said, Zippin Pippn was closed for a few seasons, but it had already been taken down and put into storage once, right. I seem to recall a park wanted it, even announced they were going to get it, untl they couldn't get the zoning permits. Or am I thinking of the Race World Thunder Eagle?

Dipper is still standing in hopes to find a good ending to this story. Who knows, with a new guy involved in cedar fair, getting dipper with some sort of " classic" park going might just make a good pr splash for the new leadership! There are so many people working behind the headlines to make something good happen.

New owner - I know its longer than the longest longshot - but maybe the new ownership would like to add a "Boardwalk" section to Geauga Lake with just a handful of classic rides. (Hey, it's worked for Coney Island in Cincinnati!)

There is no new ownership. Just a new CEO.

I think he meant future owners of the land when he said "new owners".

Id be willing to bet that there is nothing usable except maybe a lift motor from Screechin Eagle at this point.

I always wondered at the feasibility money wise of moving a wooden coaster. It seems fairly simple to do most steel ones, but there are definetely more pieces/parts to a wooden one it seems.

About the only thing that you can save when you move a wooden coaster is the machinery and the bents. The track itself is more or less destroyed in the dismantling process.

Actually, I was thinking witth the new CEO for Cedar Fair, it does give a chance to revisit some past decisions. Not likely, mind you, unless there was tangible strong sentiment that a small rides midway could work into the GL waterpark concept.

But, if they did sell the land that was, perhaps, just the 1950's area of GL to a new owner, that wanted to make a small park out of it. But then, would Cedar Fair ever sell the land to anybody that wanted to open any kind of amusement center?

Sort of why Park River sold Americana to Jerry Couch, they specifically didn't want anybody they thought could sucessfully operating that park to get it and use it against them. Unfortunately for us all, the 2002 experiment proved them right. (* at least thats the rumor of the situation)