New Theme Park Announcement today in Nashville

The buzz is that at 1pm today the mayor of Spring Hill, TN (about 30 miles south of Nashville) is announcing a 'major' theme park, hotel, and commercial development' on about 1,00 acres. There is an unspecified "Florida Theme Park Company" involved, and the mayor says he has visited their park in Florida. Ruling out Disney and Universal, what does that leave us with? Merlin? Any other ideas?

Interestingly, this is literally 5 miles north of the land that the "Ole South USA" project had its eye on.

http://www.c-dh.net/articles/2011/03/01/top_stories/02park.txt

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/morning_call/2011/03/spring-hi...-park.html

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/14170659/announcement-to-be-made-...theme-park

I hope they get a decent park in Nashville. Their tourist economy really never recovered from the loss of Opryland, and hopefully this would help bring people back into the city.

Mostly though, I just care for sentimental reasons. Opryland was the first park I ever went to, and I hated seeing it get torn down.

There's no way that area would support a hotel.

Vater,
if nothing else that location would support a hotel on the basis of all the Chicagoans and Michinganders looking for a halfway hotel on their Florida trips, as it'll be just off of I-65.

It was a joke.

That's exciting news, Brian!

I'm at the announcement. They just unveiled a piece of concept art labeled done by ITEC labeled "festival Tennessee" in the center is a Universal Studios style arch labeled "Great Southern Studios". Ride wise, there is a S&S drop ride, a Dragon Coaster in a kids' area, a whitewater raft style ride, and... get this, a knight themed Arrow Suspended coaster. I didn't even know you could buy those anymore. Mayor Michael Dinwiddie says "this is not an amusement park, it is more than that, a themed family entertainment and resort destination"
Calling for 10 to 15,000 jobs created. We'll see.

Dennis Peterson says it will have "one of the largest waterparks in the US"

Soft opening Thanksgiving 2012

The announcement is starting to make its way into Google News:
http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2011/03/02/new-theme-park...essee.html
and
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110302/WILLIAMSON01/110302014/S...-Tennessee

I asked the speaker directly if there would be coasters, he said yes and followed up with a description of a "Niagra Falls" ride where you would ride in a barrel and free-fall off the falls (not a coaster) Incidentally, the land they're buying is gorgeous and hilly. If they site the park well within the property you could build some killer terrain coasters. It is a very ambitious project and not unlike dozens if similar projects around the country that have been announced and never broke ground, well see if they have the resources to pull it off.

Ahhh HA! This explains the Arrow Suspended and the bad sweaters in the concept art. The concepts shown today at the announcement were "10 years old", according to Mr. Peterson as quoted in this article.
http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2011/03/02/questions-rais...tival.html
Elsewhere I found a quote from an old partner of his that confirms this project, in some form, has been kicking for as many as 13 years. Why now? Why Nashville?

Three words: Wild West World.

"Hard Rock Park" are three other words that come to mind.

The developer also said that he wants to bring an NBA team in and build similar projects in three other cities.

This plan isn't going anywhere but it will be entertaining to watch it crash and burn.

Vater said:
There's no way that area would support a hotel.

Can I give a +2? ;)

Could we be a little less supportive of this project? ;)

Vater said:
There's no way that area would support a hotel.

That joke will never get old. I laugh every time someone busts that dude's balls. +2 indeed.

Vater said:
There's no way that area would support a hotel.

Right because Nashville and Jackson are similar sized locales with similar weather and equivalent tourism LOL.

But the proof that it can't is that if it could, someone would have built it already.