Valerio Ferrari told county lawmakers that he wants to build the tallest pendulum ride in the world at Rye Playland. The new ride could set a record by 10 feet, he said.
Ferrari is president and CEO of Italian roller coaster and ride manufacturer Zamperla, which thinks the park needs to offer modern thrills in addition to Art Deco nostalgia if it is going to improve its attendance.
“My brand manager tells me we need something to really put Playland back on the map,” Ferrari said. Zamperla owns Central Amusements International Inc., the operator of the rides at Coney Island in Brooklyn and one of the companies interested in taking over the day-to-day operations of county-owned Playland. A marquee ride such as the record-setting pendulum ride, or an “air race” ride that spins 100 feet in the air, could be a buzz-generating attraction among new rides that would help increase attendance from Playland’s roughly 350,000 per year closer to 700,000 to 800,000, he said.
New rides at Playland should match the aesthetics of historical rides such as the 85-year-old Dragon Coaster and carousel, he said. “Where Coney Island is a thrill ride, Playland would be a theme ride,” Ferrari said.
When Westchester County solicited proposals in 2011 to reinvent Rye Playland, it was broad in its guidelines and hopeful that the loose parameters would bring in imaginative suggestions for what to do with the county-owned park.
Many believed the reinvention process meant the end of Playland as an amusement park, with the expectation that proposals would come in suggesting razing some rides and shifting the focus away from the amusements.
Today, it is becoming increasingly likely that Playland’s future, unclear as it may be, will be as an amusement park — and maybe even one with some new, state-of-the-art attractions.
The county Board of Legislators’ Labor, Parks, Planning and Housing Committee met Sept. 4 with two potential operators for the park, both focused on investing to once again make Playland’s amusements a local draw. Standard Amusements Inc. and Central are each interested in running the park and both view new rides as central to their goals. Nicholas Singer, executive managing director of Standard, said improving the amusements was a restoration project.
“It means not turning Playland into the next Great Adventure or some thrill park, it’s maintain the historical integrity. …It’s really restoring it to its former grandeur,” he said.
Standard and Central are back at the negotiating table after having been among the 12 groups that submitted proposals in 2011. The two companies finished as finalists, but were passed over in favor nonprofit Sustainable Playland Inc., which walked away from its agreement to take over the park among scrutiny of its improvement plan and questions about its access to capital.
Neither Standard nor Central will need to rely heavily on outside funding, representatives said. Central and its parent company, Zamperla, have extensive assets. Standard is owned by Standard General L.P., a hedge fund operator. Both companies want a management deal that would see one or the other pay $25 million to the county over the course of the agreement.
Singer said all of Standard’s investment in upgrades would be from cash on-hand. “We have the money and we’re committing to spend it in this fashion,” he said. The two companies had explored a joint venture but were unable to come to terms and a confidentiality agreement between the two meant the details were unclear over the failed partnership.
Although both of the companies’ plans are similar in their approaches to revitalizing the amusement park function of Playland, the businesses differed in how they would undertake the project. Standard representatives said the company would look to make a splash in its first year of operation to announce its presence, saying it needed a visible difference and a number of new attractions to bring back regular visitors.
Central officials said its transformation would take place over a number of years much the same way it has handled Coney Island’s evolution. Central started with aesthetic and safety improvements when it took over Coney Island, but this year unveiled a new marquee roller coaster, The Thunderbolt. Ferrari said Central has increased revenues at Coney Island from $8.5 million in 2010 to $22 million in 2014.
The county executive’s initial goal of reinventing the park had focused on establishing a year-round use for 100 acres out of the total 280 acres of Playland. Sustainable had proposed a 82,500-square-foot field house though that could be used during winter months, but its construction became a rallying cry from some groups who said it was too large and would bring traffic to the area, in a coastal neighborhood in Rye.
Standard’s and Central’s plans have more understated goals for year-round uses, although Standard’s plans did include new athletic fields (Singer said in light of the Sustainable process, Standard was willing to remove the fields). The companies suggested holiday-themed events for Halloween and Christmas and Central opening earlier and closing later than is currently practiced. Both groups said they would look to improve the food options in the park and would likely utilize the boardwalk area for new restaurants, which could also be used year round.
County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican who came into office in 2010, made finding a private operator for the park a goal of his administration, saying the park was losing millions per year while attendance declined year to year. After Sustainable left the table earlier this year, Astorino agreed to pay $100,000 to consultant Dan Biederman and his firm Biederman Redevelopment Ventures Corp. to review operations at the park and make recommendations for its future. That report is due at the end of November and Democratic lawmakers have re-engaged Standard and Central before that report is even filed, saying waiting will mean not having a new operator in place for the 2015 season.
