SFNO could be revived as Jazzland again

[ECG]

Jazzland operated in New Orleans from 2000-2002 before Six Flags purchased the park in 2003. The park closed in 2005 after sustaining heavy damage from Hurricane Katrina, but the City of New Orleans issued a new RFP for redevelopment proposals for the former Jazzland/Six Flags property with a deadline for those proposals of 28. February, 2014.
The Mayor's committee originally picked Dallas developer DAG/Provident who proposed to build an outlet mall at the site. In March of 2013 they announced that those plans were "in limbo", and in June they said that the outlet mall was not viable and that they were working on a "significantly different" "non-retail" idea.
Here is the proposal that was submitted to return the site to Jazzland Theme Park: http://www.jazzlandpark.com/rfp/tpc-nola_jazzland_proposal_for_rfp_final.pdf

The document is quite large, so here are some of the interesting bits.

The Jazzland proposal has approximately 90% of the necessary financing in place. Our planned budget for the first phase of development is $50 million.

That might not seem like a large sum of money to start building a major theme park, but much of the infrastructure is still in place as well as many of the coasters and other rides.
Despite urban legend, the previous operations were profitable.

Historically, the park’s attendance ranged from 750,000 to just over 1 million guests, averaging over 800,000 annually. This was achieved while operating seasonally and competing with Six Flags Astroworld in Houston (closed 2005). Today, the closest regional park is the Six Flags in Atlanta. We also plan to operate year-round to take advantage of our mild winters, international tourism and conventions. While we anticipate Year 1 to be strong, we are being conservative in our projections and estimating 850,000 guests with a 3% annual growth rate.

Construction will begin in June, 2014 with the park opening in the summer of 2015. At first only the theme park will open, but a film backlot, a new water park and a new concert venue will also be added to the site.

The park will be divided into four "lands": The Quarter, Sportsman's Paradise, The Beach, and The Bayou.

Of the existing coasters (a CCI woodie, a Vekoma boomerang, a L&T Systems wild mouse and a Vekoma Hurricane), it appears that only Mega Zeph and Jester will be kept. Gravity Group already inspected Mega Zeph in 2012 and have determined that it can be restored to a safe operating condition. The proposal also states that the coaster will use new Timberliner trains.

The existing Vekoma Hurricane coaster will be restored and re-themed as Driskill Mountain to fit into the Sportsman’s Paradise area where riders will travel in and out of the mountain "surprising black bears and disrupting campsites". The proposal also states that the park will add a water coaster (possibly the former Roller Soaker at Hersheypark or more likely Soak'd from Freestyle Music Park) called Fire Engine Coaster.

With a “fire house” as a queue building, guests will be able to board our suspended fire engine family coaster inspired by Ferrara Fire Apparatus. Celebrating our state's firefighting professionals, and a Louisiana company, the queue area will also feature fire safety educational elements. The soaker coaster will include water play elements that interact with the river rapids ride.

A wild mouse coaster will also be added, but it's unclear if it will be just a relocation of Muskrat Scrambler.

Inspired by the Pontchartrain Beach originals, the former “Jocco’s” building will be expanded to house a modern Laff-in-the-Dark ride. Nearby, a former games buildingwill be repurposed asthe Haunted House, and the Spillway Splashout will be replaced with the Wild Maus, a mouse coaster.

Other attractions include an interactive hunting dark shooter ride, a Tin Lizzie type attraction called Mudhoggin’, a new river rapids ride called Red River Run, a refurbished log flume called Sugar Flume and a new Ferris Wheel. The building that housed the Cajun Pirates motion simulator, and later the Sponge Bob show, will be fitted with new equipment and a new film. A classic “Tunnel of Love” type ride called Sea Of Love and a replica the Milneburg Lighthouse that will contain a drop tower attraction will be built. The pirate ship, carousel, swing ride, bumper cars and airboat rides will also be refurbished, if possible, or replaced with similar attractions.

 

[Jordanovichy]

Re: SFNO to be revived as Jazzland again

When I first found out about what happened to SFNO I always thought this would happen. It isn't completely ruined, it just needs a lot of money spending on it to get it up to it's former glory. I am really happy this is happening, it deserves it, seeing pictures of this park are almost heartbreaking...and I've never been (obviously) and everything happened before I knew what a coaster was.

I think that Berlin park on sale on eBay could be restored too. I like this sort of news

 

[ECG]

Re: SFNO to be revived as Jazzland again

^Just be clear, this isn't necessarily "happening". This is just one of many proposals submitted, but the only one that wants to restore the site as a theme park.

 

[Jordanovichy]

Ahhh right, my mistake, well I'm glad people actually want to keep it as a theme park. What are the other proposals apart from the mall? I can't see anything else mentioned in here... Is there a 'favourite' at this early stage?

 

[marc]

It's great news if it happens, it's a shame Six Flags did not restore it themselves tbh.

 

[ECG]

Ahhh right, my mistake, well I'm glad people actually want to keep it as a theme park. What are the other proposals apart from the mall? I can't see anything else mentioned in here... Is there a 'favourite' at this early stage?

I'm not sure of the other proposals, but I know there were more and the outlet mall wasn't one of them. The mall proposal was made over a year ago from what I remember reading at the time. The city council then decided to just keep the park abandoned because of the money they were making from leasing it out as a movie backlot (which is why that's included in the Jazzland proposal), but after the filming of Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes last year they decided to accept new proposals again.

 

[rtotheizzo17]

If this and Grand Texas get the greenlight for 2015 the gulf/bayou will be a decent road trip.

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

Hope this goes ahead, would be nice to see it open again.

 

[CanobieFan]

I would love for this to happen. If they get Mega Zeph up and running, I'd be there for sure that summer. NO is only an 8 hour drive from here!

 

[insanecoastervids]

This would be crazy if this opened again.This came straight out of the dead.

 

[Youngster Joey]

I do hope it opens. New orleans deserves a park in the area.

 

[ECG]

Boo

Six Flags redevelopment committee dismisses Jazzland revival proposals, for now
The years-long search for a developer for the abandoned Six Flags amusement park in eastern New Orleans remains an unfulfilled quest, for now.
A committee tasked with selecting a new project for the 150-acre site met Tuesday (April 1) to review two plans to revive a version of the park's roller-coaster predecessor, Jazzland.
The five-member panel, made up of members of the Industrial Development Board and Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration, was in consensus: The two ambitious plans on the table lack financial substance to move forward.
Alan Philipson, Industrial Development Board chairman who led the committee meeting, said the companies behind the proposals can return, if more firm finances are assembled to back their project.
"This committee has an obligation to the city, to the Industrial Development Board, to all of the citizens in this community, that we are not going to let ourselves sit down at a table and ink a deal that we're not comfortable the financial where with all is there," Philipson said. "Both of these proposals have come in here with absolutely no cash commitment."
The committee has two proposals under consideration:

- The Paidia Company, operating through subsidiary TPC-NOLA Inc., once again is proposing to resurrect Jazzland. Paidia had made a similar proposal in 2011, but was rebuffed by Landrieu's administration early in the selection process. The proposal includes a $50 million initial phase to reconstruct the amusement park. Plans for a second phase include a $20 million music-themed water park called "Baritone Beach" along with development retail outlets in the future.

- Transformation Village LLC submitted a wide-ranging, seven-phase plan that starts with building a Jazzland park, although the plan has no clear source of funding or cost estimate. Future phases of the development would include a water park called "Atlantis," a dome-shaped shopping center arranged by global continents, a 450-foot replica of Noah's Ark that houses an orchestra studio, a movie production lot, a resort-hotel complex and a facility for students studying hospitality.

The deteriorating park has been largely untouched since Hurricane Katrina, although movie productions sometimes use the area. The park was once known as Jazzland, but the entertainment chain Six Flags bought the roller coaster haven in 2002. The new owner did not return after the storm.
In 2012, the city attracted a possible outlet mall development at the site, but the plans crumbled last year. Provident Realty Advisors and DAG Development were chosen to build a 400,000-square-foot, $70 million shopping mall, and the joint venture signed a two-year temporary lease agreement for exclusive rights to develop the land.
When a Riverwalk outlet mall project moved forward, developers for the Six Flags site walked away from their plans, arguing the New Orleans area market couldn't support two outlet malls.
In response to the committee's concerns on Tuesday, the leaders of both development groups suggested that it will be difficult to get investors fully committed without a preliminary agreement with the city.
Both groups said they would be returning to the Industrial Development Board with more financial information to keep their proposals alive.
"You cannot get the full funding for a project like this until you get a deal, because that's the way the credit markets work," Tanya Pope, head of the TPC-NOLA Jazzland proposal, told the committee.
This was the second time TPC-NOLA developers appeared before the committee after making an initial presentation last month.
Meanwhile, Transformation Village developers heard their first feedback from the committee, even bringing a Lego model of their proposed dome-shaped, global-themed shopping mall with miniature flags and poles. The proposal says with all phases of the project, including the amusement and water parks, shopping mall and a recording studio inside the Noah's Ark structure, the development could pull in $80 million a year in revenues.
They propose funding half of the development with foreign investments through a federal immigrant investor program, known as EB-5, along with private equity, tax incentives and public bonds. The sources of those funding streams were unclear.
Committee member Justin Augustine, an Industrial Development Board member, said he is seeing creativity but questionable financial capacity and experience from the would-be developers.
"I see a lot of concepts," Augustine said. "I don't see any meat on the bone."
Jeff Hebert, head of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and a committee member, agreed: "This is too big of a project, too massive of a development project, to not have meat on the bones," he said.
"It's ridiculous that a project this big would have such a lack of detail," Hebert added.
Frank Scurlock with Transformation Village said he will go back to their "investment pool" ask for an investor to partner with them in bringing more information to the city.
Another committee member, Aimee Quirk, Landrieu's economic development adviser, said economic development leaders continue to promote the site to potential developers, including at an upcoming conference of the International Council of Shopping Centers. She said there are already indications that other proposals will be submitted.
When launching the selection process in January, the committee said it would accept proposals on a rolling basis with no firm deadline.
As of Tuesday, no other proposals were under consideration.

Source: http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2014/04/six_flags_redevelopment_commit_2.html