Info on Nashville Amusement Park Research?

Does anyone remember all the buzz of Nashville getting a new amusement park a while ago? Well after they turned it down, smooth move Nashville, they said they have started some type of organization or something of the sort, that will research possible things that would get us an amusement park. So my question is has anyone heard anything about it lately? And even if we do get one would anyone be interested in coming since Dollywood is starting to expand and all?

I believe they turned it down as a result of the research they had.
I'd go if i were in the area, or on a coaster-quest.

Before flying home from my Voyage/Rumbler quest last weekend, I stopped at the mall in Nashville for the BONUS that Themedesigner spoke of a while back--visit the old Opryland park remains--mostly the rapids ride. It was really depressing to think what used to be there. I never made it to that park while it was open, but from the remains I saw, I imagined it was a very nice park.

I think it got poo-pooed by the neighborhoods that were going to be affected. N.I.M.B.Y. they shouted! That's the last I remember hearing about it, and that's been probably last summer.

Nashville council member Charlie Tygardd (sp) is who you want to contact. He was one of two Metro council members who supported a study into the feasability of bringing a theme park back to Nashville.

Also, more recently, there has been talk of creating a special tourist/economic development zone around Gaylord Opryland, but don't look for this to happen unless the new 600 million dollar covention center is built in downtown Nashville.

Creating this special economic development zone around the Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center, the largest non-casino hotel in the world, is Nashville's way of throwing Gaylord a bone.

Now you have to ask yourself, if there is a new tourist/economic development zone created in the Opryland area --- what would Gaylord build, if anything?

Although I haven't seen the Tennessean article, supposedly back in 2004 a report was released that the current Gaylord board of directors and executives could find no evidence that prior management had ever understood the value of the theme park or even had a business plan for managing the park. Seems far fetched, but if true it is not surprising based on how things turned out.

Yeah, Opryland was a nice park. It had a lot of potential to be better than it was. It was managed poorly. Lots of nice shows, so-so rides, and very blah coasters. Their focus tended to be more on shows, and the rides were an afterthought - with a few exceptions. I think their rapids ride was one of the wildest ones I've been on. Anyhoo - my bitterness towards Gaylord has not subsided, so i'm going to leave it at that. ; )

Isn't Nashville the place where the proposed Dollywood II would be built. Whatever happened with that plan?

http://tinyurl.com/nc3jy
This is the latest mention of a theme park here, which isn't very encouraging. I still think one will be built here some day, but it may be awhile now. And I don't think one will be built in the Opryland Hotel area. For one thing, I don't think there's enough room; possibly enough back by the river down near the KOA campground, but I think that's being slowly being developed.

http://nashville.gov/mc/resolutions/rs2005_774.htm
If you look in the minutes from the metro council meetings here, the findings for a feasibility study requested back in Aug 2004 were finally given in March 2005, and were encouraging. But they still
need to know the actions required to get a park built here, and last I could find they were still waiting on that. Or maybe not. Maybe I missed something about it at a later date, or it was just given up on. Seems our mayor has been more interested in the new downtown baseball field our AAA team is getting, than a theme park.

BTW, here's the latest that we know of on "Dollywood II".
http://tinyurl.com/s8xck

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Gemini Greg said: Although I haven't seen the Tennessean article, supposedly back in 2004 a report was released that the current Gaylord board of directors and executives could find no evidence that prior management had ever understood the value of the theme park or even had a business plan for managing the park. Seems far fetched, but if true it is not surprising based on how things turned out.

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Below is the article you mentioned from the Tennessean (8/15/04). If you are a member at Tennessean.com you could probably find the real thing in the archives:

What Gaylord says now about Opryland USA

Current Gaylord Entertainment Co. executives say they've found no evidence that former decision-makers even had a business plan for Opryland USA theme park, let alone any strategic analysis that led to closing it.

It's clear that the closing of the park negatively affected the number of tourists that visited Nashville in the summer, Gaylord spokesman Greg Rossiter said, noting that it affected the number of leisure travelers staying at its Opryland Hotel, as well as every other hotel nearby.

The current management team has found no compelling reasons why the decision to close the park was taken in the first place.

None of the Opryland-era executives are still at Gaylord, he said. The current team is headed by President and Chief Executive Officer Colin Reed.

By Jeanne Anne Naujeck

*** Edited 5/10/2006 9:52:25 PM UTC by Dukeis#1***

I'm too lazy to pull up what I've said on other threads about this, so I'll say it again. The COO of our company was one of the financial guys at Gaylord who was part of the decision to close down the park. He says they were faced with around 13 million dollars in necessary infrastructure repais and improvements and general deferred maintenance. Around the time they added that up, they were approached with the Mills deal, and they asked the hotel guys, who hated the park guys, if closing the park would hurt their business. "Heck no" they said "Most of our business is conventions and business travelers, we'd only take a minor hit from the park closing" so the Gaylord guys felt like it was a no brainer... 13 million dollars in repairs for a park with 'flat' attendance even after 2 new coasters, or taer it down and let the mills guys build us a shiny new mall.

Turns out many of those conventioneers and business travelers were booking extra nights and bringing their families because of the park, and the hotel occupancy rate fell from the low 90's to the high 50's, and it's still recovering. Then they sold their interest in the mall for less than the land was worth in the first place, much less what the land was worth as a theme park. And now the raft ride chute sits empty next to a lovely pathway that suggests how pretty that area used to be, before it was next to a parking lot and a movie theatre.

FYI, ThemeDesigner, I remember before you saying it was about $200 million, which makes more sense. I wouldn't think they'd sell the park over $13 million?

No, it was 13 million worth of repairs that needed to be done, maybe 15 million.

Definately not 200 million, which is the point. The amount that made them throw up their hands and give up was much smaller than you would've expected.

Kind of like the 77ish million SF is getting for AstroWorld.

The city commisioned a study to research if a newly built theme park would be viable here. The results from the study were overwhelmingly positive and supportive. Here are news articles from March of '05 about the results from the study:

http://66.45.13.138/index.cfm?section=9&screen=news&news_id=40012

http://www.newschannel5.com/content/news/9896.asp

The last time I emailed Charlie Tygard about it, he said some talk was going on behind the scenes but nothing concrete could be said about it. That was around late summer of '05.

Hey maybe this is the big news Jeff has been hinting around about. ;-)

*** Edited 5/11/2006 2:48:20 AM UTC by thrillerman1***

Speaking of Opryland...there's a great tribute site out there that I haven't seen mentioned on CBuzz before...

http://www.thrillhunter.com/Opryland.html

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ThemeDesigner said:
No, it was 13 million worth of repairs that needed to be done, maybe 15 million.

Definately not 200 million, which is the point. The amount that made them throw up their hands and give up was much smaller than you would've expected.

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I was referring to this:
http://coasterbuzz.com/forum.aspx?mode=thread&TopicID=34064
He said the decision at the time was to either spend ~$200 million for a total facelift/remodel of the aging park, or build the mall.

huh. Guess my memory's fading fast.
I'll have to check it with him again.

Hey I definately know the feeling. :)

There was also a bit of news about opryland on scremscape.

http://www.screamscape.com/html/industry_news.htm

Gaylord Entertainment… former owners of the defunct Opryland USA theme park in Nashville filed last fall for new trademarks for both “Opryland USA” and “Opryland”. Is something in the works to resurrect Opryland?
*** Edited 5/12/2006 7:52:56 PM UTC by crazy horse***