MOA's 2008 Coaster

I went to RCDB a few days ago and noted MOA's 2008 Gerstlauer Custom Euro-Fighter. But when I searched around Google to see if Phase II of MOA was happening, I didn't find anything that actually announced MOA's plan of moving forward. DOES anyone know if we will really see Phase II and this new Gerstlauer coaster completed in 2008? If not, what's going on?

There is a link on RCDB for a newspaper article announcing the coaster as part of that plan...but when you click on it, it pretty much says that the article cannot be found.

My point exactly - so does anyone actually KNOW anything?

The last thing I read in our local media seemed to imply a sticking point. The MoA was going to ask the state legislature to have local taxpayers foot a substantial part of the bill for the mall's expansion. That may be difficult to get taxpayers to accept - especially with wealthy baseball and football owners whining about local taxpayers building them new stadiums. If the MoA is depending on financial aid from taxpayers, I wouldn't consider this a done deal as of yet.

The 'sticking point' has to do with MOA's Phase II project. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Gerstlauer or the park's retheming.

Construction on Avatar will start in the northwest corner of the mall this fall and they anticipate it will be open in time for Spring Break '08.

What I wanna know: When is 'doomsday' for the Mystery Mine Ride?

-'Playa

So the new coaster is going to be built inside the existing mall and NOT inside Phase II??

Isn't the park in the middle of the mall? How can the actual park expand if that's the case? I thought this was just the addition of new rides.

Yes, the park is in the center of the mall, but I really don't see how they can fit a custom euro fighter into the park area. Are they just finding room in "the park at MOA" to put it?

If they take out my Hexentanz to put this coaster in.....there's gonna be some complaining....LOUD complaining... ;)

The Mystery Mine Ride (IWERKS ridefilm) and Old Time Photo stand in the Northwest corner of the park right now. It's safe to assume from the concept pics that they're history.

There's also a New Horizons day care atop a MOA park store by the North entrance. While I can't tell whether they'll still be there, my uneducated guess is Yes.

A closer look at a model from a non-coaster person indicates that it will indeed be a somewhat customized Eurofighter 320+. It will have a couple bunny hops after the drop/vertical loop/immeman sequence and the inline twist will be somewhat close to a wall.

-'Playa

*** Edited 3/19/2007 5:36:12 PM UTC by CoastaPlaya***

^^ That is what I remember reading also. They plan to remove the Mystery Mine Ride and most of the NW corner. In other words, the Eurofighter will be between the loading station for Ripsaw and the park's exterior wall. And from the exterior corner to the Ferris Wheel. There are renderings somewhere out there. But nothing official that I've seen. It will be tight but will be a big draw after it is put in.

There isn't anything of significance in that area that will be missed by me as long as it doesn't cause the removal of the old Met Stadium home plate plaque.;) *** Edited 3/19/2007 6:07:54 PM UTC by WildThingNative***

They are removing the mystery mine ride for this, but the only thing I'm concerned about this is that they don't have those stupid spinning figures like on the new Tony Hawk coasters.

They're also adding a 70 ft. drop tower.

Cool - where are you guys getting this info? Or is this stuff that you can't share?

I have my sources. PM me if you would like to know more.

OK, I think I understand where the confusion is coming from. They announced the new ride at the Park at MoA around the same time as the Phase II expansion of MoA. The changes at the Park are separate from the Phase II expansion. That's what I was confused about. The Phase II expansion is for an adjoining complex with additional retail stores, parking and other venues. The new ride at the Park is not part of Phase II. MoA is trying to get tax help concerning the Phase II expansion, but not the Park. Then you throw in the new marketing deal with the Park at MoA and Nickelodeon. The good news is that there are some nice changes to MoA on the horizon. I'll try to link into the map for the Park at MoA, to help people visualize it.

http://info.theparkatmoa.com/GuestInfo/map.htm