New Carowinds ride will fulfill agreement for lower taxes

Guess we now know about how much that new B&M is going to cost.

And if I'm reading it correctly you take $11M for the B&M off of the additional $14M they've agreed to spend and it looks like their only committing to another $3M over the next 2 years.

Did I read that right?

11 million for a B&M? Are they only buying the lift hill?

There could be several factors attributing to the lower than normal cost. Seeing as how the cost of a ride includes all the site development, it might be slightly less here, because a good portion of the ride will run through the parking lot where the soil is already compacted. It probably still needed more work, but it was farther along than untouched land. 2nd, we don't know the exact length or height yet. It might be a smaller B&M. But, 3rd and probably most significant is the low cost of steel right now. 4th, maybe B&M has cut their margins to be more competitive.

There is the other possibility too. The cost could have been misreported. We'll find out for sure on the 26th.

I saw another article somewhere that indicated that the new ride would be approximately a $12M investment.

I have also heard that the bedrock beneath Carowinds is not very deep, which might also simplify foundation construction.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

There have been compact B&Ms constructed outside the US for less than $15 million, like Daemonen at Tivoli Gardens. Cost: about $12 million at the time.

http://www.rcdb.com/2504.htm

Led Zeppelin The Ride at Hard Rock Park was a $10 million dollar coaster. This ride is short in length but does have 150 foot lift hill. I just can't imagine a B&M Hyper being $11 million. I think either the cost is wrong or what I think the ride is (Hyper) is wrong.

While I don't think its a dive machine, SheiKra cost only $13.5M. Not a bad price for a 200' coaster, albeit, short.

So much for the parks investment being $11 million this year.

According to their stat page it's $23 Million.

I know we've done this before, but B&M's pricetag can account for anywhere from 25% to 75% of the total investment. Infrastructure like water and electric, land clearance/prep, and other costs associated with "the project" can take a 5 million dollar coaster (for example, I know there's no B&M out there that could be had for that) and turn it into a 25 million dollar "investment". Take Mystery Mine as an example of how the ride hardware doesn't always account for the total, or even the najority of, the expansion's listed price-tag.

Yes I know. But, wouldn't all of those associated costs be apart of what the park agreed to invest?

^LOL Jason, that wasn't *aimed* at you in any way. More along the lines of the park says "we're spending 25 million dollars on this year's cap-ex", and too many people thinking that means a $25M piece of hardware waiting to be installed....

I just couldn't see the benefit of having ^ & ^^ pointed all over the place irritating the webmaster... ;)

Gotcha.