NEWS: New park - Paramount: Osaka

[Airtime&Gravity]

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Sun Capital Management Corp., a Japanese property fund operator, is seeking to secure 145 billion yen ($1.5 billion) for its bid to open a Paramount Pictures entertainment complex in Osaka as early as 2014.

 

“We are approaching more than 10 financial institutions, including Japanese megabanks and investment banks in the U.S., Europe and Asia,” President Kenji Maeda said yesterday in an interview. “So far, reactions have been very positive.”

 

Sun Capital said in July it was negotiating with Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Licensing to develop the theme park on a 40- hectare (99-acre) site that was developed for Osaka’s 1970 World Exposition. The government-owned site has been idle since last year, when the company that operated an amusement facility there went bankrupt.

 

Sun Capital will propose its plan to the prefectural government by May, Maeda said. The park, which he said may open in 2014 or 2015, would compete with Universal Studios Japan, a theme park opened on Osaka Bay in 2001 and sold last year to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

 

Maeda, 45, declined to say which banks Osaka-based Sun Capital had approached.

 

Osaka Prefecture aims to select a plan for the site, jointly owned by the regional and central governments, by this summer, spokesman Yuzuru Yamamoto said by telephone.

 

Paramount Licensing has said it would not be an investor in the project. It may license film rights and take a role in designing the theme park.

 

 

Link

[coaster1000]

Is it going to be bought by Cedar Fair too?

"Dragon Deck"

 

Anyways, I think it's nice to see the enormous potential Asia has - lots of new parks has opened lately.

[tntornadox]

It's a pity Paramount couldn't have operated real quality parks when they owned a chain themselves... oh wait, that would have meant Viacom would have had to spend MONEY, wouldn't it? My mistake...

[thomas2]

This is actually rather interesting since the park will be built on the land of the old Expoland. I looked at the website of this cooperation ( http://www.sun-capitalmanagement.co.jp/ ) and found a proposal for the area. This isn't only a themepark they plan to add but an entire entertainement area which is temporarly called Osaka Entertainement City. A pdf file can be found here:

 

http://www.sun-capitalmanagement.co.jp/PDF/20100602172452.pdf

 

Scroll down and you'll see a overview map of the expo region. The big green spot in the middle is the current Expopark. Site A is the old site of Expoland and that's where the new themepark resort will be built, which has and said before movies as themes. Site B will be sort of a venue for live entertainement as is called 'Osaka Live!'

 

Right now I'm living in the same city as the expopark and it's such a bummer that I'm too late for Expoland and too early for this new themepark!!

[B-RadG]

So will they be keeping Expoland's old coasters (Space Salamander and the 2 kiddie coasters)?

[thomas2]

I'm pretty sure not. First of all I don't know how accurate RCDB is with these coasters as they might already have left the park by now. And secondly this new park will open in 2014 or 2015 and the coasters will have been dormant for 7 years than. They were breaking down the ferris wheel when I visited in october and there was no sign of any rollercoaster left, altough it's a hilly park and of course I couldn't enter the actual park.