California Great America (CGA) Discussion Thread

[AmyUD06]

8 minutes ago, swfan1988 said:

Also thought it was interesting that this is not a hard ticket event, and season passes are good for it. I always heard/thought that the most profitable part of haunt events was that everybody had to buy a ticket.

At most CF and SF parks, the night-time Halloween events haven't been separately ticketed events, and season passes have been good.

[leqant]

New ride for 2022: Liberty Twirler, a scrambler ride built on the spot of FireFall.  

Edit: More info here: https://www.cagreatamerica.com/rides-experiences/liberty-twirler

[grsupercity]

All parks need supporting flats like this! 

[Vonni]

Lose Haunt, get a Scrambler

[KBrylczyk]

22 hours ago, Vonni said:

Lose Haunt, get a Scrambler

 

[coasterbill]

California's Great America to Close within 11 years

SANDUSKY, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Cedar Fair, L.P. (NYSE: FUN), a leader in regional amusement parks, water parks and immersive entertainment, today announced it has sold the land at its California’s Great America amusement park and plans to close the park. Cedar Fair elected to sell the land to Prologis, Inc. (NYSE: PLD), a Bay Area-based logistics real estate company, for approximately $310 million with a lease agreement. The Company will continue to operate the park for a period of up to 11 years and then will close existing park operations at the end of the lease term.

The land sale, which was marketed by CBRE, was the outcome of a strategic review initiated by Cedar Fair in 2021 to explore potential avenues to maximize the value of the Company’s extensive asset portfolio. Cedar Fair purchased the land at California’s Great America in 2019 from the City of Santa Clara after the State of California dissolved redevelopment agencies, requiring the city to cede its ownership of the property to pay off existing debt. Prior to that transaction, the Company leased the land from the City for more than 40 years.

Cedar Fair intends to use proceeds from the land sale transaction to accelerate progress on its strategic priorities of reducing debt to achieve its $2 billion target, investing in high-return projects within its portfolio such as upgrading resort properties, and reinstating a sustainable unitholder distribution. Based on the strength and pace of the recovery since reopening its parks in 2021, and due to the additional capital raised through the Great America transaction, Cedar Fair expects to reinstate quarterly unitholder distributions by the third quarter of 2022, subject to review and approval by the Cedar Fair Board of Directors.

“We chose Prologis as our partner because of their deep ties in the Bay Area and their reputation for working closely with local communities on large developments,” said Cedar Fair President and CEO Richard A. Zimmerman. “For our investors, the sale and lease agreements allow us to monetize a high-value asset in the heart of Silicon Valley at a very attractive multiple. The transaction also provides us with a substantial sum of incremental capital which we intend to use to further advance our strategic priorities and generate enhanced returns for our unitholders.”

Cedar Fair

[jarmor]

It can actually be sooner than that, as it states up to 11 years.

 

Guess i need to plan for next year.

[AmyUD06]

I guess we know when MiA, WoF, and Dorney are getting their next coasters...LOL but not really.  This is kinda sad, but they are a business first and foremost.  Guess I know where my first trip in 2023 will be.

My speculation on the destination for their coasters and major rides, based solely on what I think they need, not any actual land-use planning:

-Berserker (Schwarzkopf Bayern Kurve) - Dorney Park, please please pretty please?
-Delta Flyer (Von Roll sky ride) - Sent to CP for spare parts
-Demon - Scrapped
-Drop Tower - Do any of their parks not have a drop tower?  MiA?
-Flight Deck - Kings Dominion
-Gold Striker - WoF
-Orbit (Schwarzkopf Enterprise) - Kings Dominion, please please pretty please?
-Patriot - MiA
-Psycho Mouse (Arrow wild mouse)- Scrapped
-RailBlazer - KBF or Dorney Park
-Star Tower - Scrapped
-Grizzly - Scrapped
-Either of the kiddie coasters - Kings Island or Dorney Park
 

[pianojohn]

Shocked but not surprised. The land this park sits on is too valuable to maintain a theme park. I went in 2019 and was surprised by the very small crowd. No way this park is making enough money to justify its existence in this city known for its tech presence.

Will they rebuild somewhere else? Doubtful. I can only hope they move the rides to other deserving Cedar Fair parks. My suggestions:

Rail Blazer to Worlds of Fun or Michigan's Adventure.
Flight Deck to Michigan's Adventure so they can scrap their Vekoma invert.
Patriot to Worlds of Fun which doesn't have a floorless.
Psycho Mouse to Cedar Point. Why not!
Gold Striker: who knows. 

Demon, Grizzly will probably be scrapped. 

[coasterbill]

Grizzly is getting scrapped, but I want it to go to Dorney because I'm an asshole like that.

[Manic Monte]

I never get emotional over things like this, but Great America is my childhood park. Riding Flight Desk (Top Gun at the time) is what turned me into an enthusiast.

I will miss this park immensely

On a scarier note, I can envision a future where Knotts, Universal and Disney are the few players left in this state. Real Estate land is at such a premium here.

[AmyUD06]

On another note, does anyone know how much of the park they run for Winterfest?  Please tell me it's everything.

[PKI Jizzman]

I'd bet the B&Ms are toast, from 1991 and 1993. They're short, not on flat ground.. and 30 years old. 

The park has a stunning background and looks great, Gold Striker is a top tier GCI in my opinion, it will be missed. 

The surrounding area is what really puzzles me. Yes there's Levi stadium right there but then the rest of the area is office park after office park and we know how quickly those are disappearing with remote work. Curious to see what comes of this.

[PKI Jizzman]

2 minutes ago, Mike240SX said:

On another note, does anyone know how much of the park they run for Winterfest?  Please tell me it's everything.

The main coasters run.

[AmyUD06]

8 minutes ago, PKI Jizzman said:

The main coasters run.

Main coasters as in all adult coasters and the Bayern Kurve and Enterprise?  If so, I think I found my December trip.

[_s3_]

15 minutes ago, PKI Jizzman said:

I'd bet the B&Ms are toast, from 1991 and 1993. They're short, not on flat ground.. and 30 years old. 

I, personally, would doubt that they would scrap them. They can be great fillers for other parks, especially with Patriot's recent reno into a floorless. I likely see Patriot going to MiA or WoF and Flight Deck going to KD. The "not on flat ground" argument might be valid, but that can easily be accommodated for with land grating and/or a few new supports.

[leqant]

Well this is very bad news for someone who lives in the area like me.   I'm hoping that the park can remain open but given how valuable the land is, it's hard for Cedar Fair to not sell it.  In case CGA goes, then I'd like to say thank you Great America for making me introducing and getting me into roller coasters and for all the great memories I made there.

[CP_RULES]

WoF just got a Mamba system upgrade we're all good for 15 years!

Really sad news any time a major park announces a closure to be serious, though. Anyone think the pandemic had anything to do with it? I have read some grim things about the region's economy recently.

[laqueefa]

1 hour ago, Manic Monte said:

I never get emotional over things like this, but Great America is my childhood park. Riding Flight Desk (Top Gun at the time) is what turned me into an enthusiast.

I will miss this park immensely

Echoing this 1000% what a sad day.

With the football stadium sharing the current parking lot, I wonder what the area would be turned into...

[coasterbill]

Normally I don’t like when this happens and everyone speculates about who’s getting what because everyone just picks their favorite park (example: Railblazer could go almost anywhere), but Flight Deck is an interesting case because there are actually very few options.

Look, I get that this chain now has 3 parks that feature a B&M hyper and a B&M giga so I guess theoretically they could put 2 inverts in the same park but assuming they don’t do that there’s not much.

The only parks without an invert of any kind are Kings Dominion and Valleyfair. Michigan’s Adventure and Canada’s Wonderland have inverts but they’re SLCs. 

Let’s eliminate Michigan’s Adventure because I think we can all agree that it’s not going there, Flight Deck (if not scrapped) is almost definitely going to one of three parks.

I feel like Dominion is a heavy favorite, though Wonderland wouldn’t shock me either. They could either remove those two pieces of crap that are right next to eachother that I’ve wanted them to remove forever or just keep them both and add this anyway because they need all of the capacity that they can get. Maybe they can be the only park in the world with dueling Flight Decks.  

I vote for KD though if they don’t scrap it (which is also very likely).

[Manic Monte]

Yeah no way Cedar Fair sticks it out for even 5 years imo.

[thrillseeker4552]

Sad news, but I can't say I'm too surprised. I think their lack of following their ambitious expansion plan from a few years ago (which includes nixing the B&M hyper and giving it to Kings Island instead, which Cedar Fair confirmed themselves) was a sign. Given their debt from the pandemic and the extremely, extremely valuable land CGA sits on, I suppose it all makes sense.

Railblazer will almost certainly be relocated since it's new and easily constructible. Everything else is sort of a wild card in my opinion. The two B&Ms are both quite old and could be approaching their service lives, and they both use the terrain slightly. Gold Striker is probably in decent shape but relocating woodies is pretty rare. I think it's safe to say Demon and Grizzly are getting scrapped. Who knows about anything else.

Also, yeah, I doubt it's running for 11 more years. I'm guessing until 2024 or 2025.

[redfoot12]

Aww nuts...

I was thinking about finally making my first trip here next year. Hopefully it's still operating in '23, with most of the attractions still running.

[leqant]

CGA's potential closure is trending on Twitter in the US at #21

[VegasCoaster]

4 hours ago, laqueefa said:

Echoing this 1000% what a sad day.

With the football stadium sharing the current parking lot, I wonder what the area would be turned into...

The company that bought the land specializes in industrial real estate (warehouses mainly), so my guess is something like an amazon fulfillment center. 

They only bought the land in 2019, I'm curious how much earlier this would have happened had they owned the land for longer. I have to imagine that given the pandemic and the short duration of time that it didn't appreciate a ton. Being able to turn a huge profit on the land sale to offset pandemic losses on the chain as a whole is probably a good business decision, but sucks to lose my favorite local park.