New Amusement Park planned for... Tracy, CA?

[spiritofcalifornia]

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[lake]

Theft will be minimal, since no cash will be needed.

At least they studied their demographics.

 

Anyways, I'm starting to doubt this even more after seeing the plan... I mean unless the entire Bay Area is gonna all come and stay in the hotels and go to the theme parks, I don't see how they expect people to get there. I mean looking at the surrounding area, there is no way to get to Tracy. Here's my analysis.

Stockton Airport ( very limited service. not even 1 flight a day) 30 minutes

Sacramento Airport (150 daily flights. Mostly Southwest to Southern California) 1 and a half hours

San Jose Airport (about the same as Sacramento) 1 hour

Oakland Airport (huge Southwest hub. mostly West Coast destinations) 1 hour

San Francisco Airport (huge United and Virgin America hub. Most major North American cities) 1 hour and 15 minutes

 

I mean... why would I fly into a airport, rent a car, drive to the middle of nowhere over an hour away, be secluded in the middle of corn fields with nothing to do but what's provided by the theme park, and go to a place that I'm not sure about when I can go to Disneyland and fly into an airport, hop on a bus or taxi, ride for 20 minutes, arrive in a resort town with plenty of options for everything, and do virtually anything I want. I mean the location just doesn't make sense. There's a lot of land in Sacramento or Fairfield. At least that's developed.

[SLUSHIE]

So am I the only person that considers an hour to 2 hour drive not all that far?

 

I grew up living 2 hours from Tahoe and 2 hours from SF. In the winter I would take day trips to Tahoe weekly, and would take 'night' trips to SF for concerts n stuff all the time.

 

I'm not talking about driving from any of those airports out to this resort, I'm talking about travel around the bay area to see all the different places and not this resorts emulation of them.

 

Maybe it's the way I was raised, but when my family would take vacations we wouldn't just sit in one place the whole time. I've never been on a vacation where I didn't have a rental car.

 

They say this place is mainly for people in the region, but I think locals are going to be way harder to convince that this is anything worthwhile when they probably already live closer to the real thing of one of the places they plan to provide.

[Mechanic]

Whether this deal makes it or not, and I'm leaning heavily toward not, the amusement park portion of this proposal seems to be a relatively small part of the overall plan anyway. The newspaper and television news articles included the name "Disneyland" and many seem to have run with it from there, when this had about as much in common with the Disneyland Resort as Walmart does with Neiman Marcus.

 

This will either blow away like a fart in the wind, or end up being something along the lines of what the Nut Tree in Vacaville once was. Not surprisingly, the Nut Tree's semi-recent revitalization project, which included a small amusement park with a junior coaster, wasn't met with much success. The park has since closed and I honestly can't comment on the rest of what comprises the Nut Tree because I never stop there. It's in the middle of nowhere. Sounds like a familiar theme here.

[cfc]

The original Nut Tree was a restaurant with an air strip; some interesting shops (including a cool toy shop); and even a small train that went from the toy shop, around some nice gardens to the strip, then back. It was a bit of a "destination" in its heyday (the 1960s to '70s), mainly because the restaurant was very good and catered to families. My family used to go there once or twice a year (it was about a two hour drive) as a "treat."

 

Edited August 26, 2012 by cfc

[SLUSHIE]

Nut Tree now is nothing more than a glorified shopping center for locals. There is no reason to stop there unless your need some dog food from Petsmart, or it just happens to be the place you decide to pull over to get food on your way back to Sac from SF. The In n Out is on the other side of the freeway and not a part of Nut Tree though.

[R.C.]

So am I the only person that considers an hour to 2 hour drive not all that far?

 

I grew up living 2 hours from Tahoe and 2 hours from SF. In the winter I would take day trips to Tahoe weekly, and would take 'night' trips to SF for concerts n stuff all the time.

 

I don't think a 2 hour drive is bad at all. I have a 2 hour drive to SFDK and it doesn't bug me at all. It's funny though, add in the extra hour to get to CGA and the drive's not worth it to go to CGA. That will change next year though.

 

I would love to see this park in Tracy open. I don't think it will actually happen, but I'd visit it if it did.

[singemfrc]

Nut Tree now is nothing more than a glorified shopping center for locals. There is no reason to stop there unless your need some dog food from Petsmart, or it just happens to be the place you decide to pull over to get food on your way back to Sac from SF. The In n Out is on the other side of the freeway and not a part of Nut Tree though.

I still don't stop there. When I'm on the way back to Sac from SF I stop at the In-N-Out in Pinole. Take the Appling exit

[SoCalCoasters]

Nut Tree now is nothing more than a glorified shopping center for locals. There is no reason to stop there unless your need some dog food from Petsmart, or it just happens to be the place you decide to pull over to get food on your way back to Sac from SF. The In n Out is on the other side of the freeway and not a part of Nut Tree though.

 

 

You forgot about the Fenton's.

[MrSum1_55]

At this point, nothing is known of how much will be invested into the "amusement park" section. It could easily be a ferris wheel and a couple of rides, or they could invest nearly half the project into the theme park. Although, how much do mega hotel resorts cost? If after the plans for the hotel-casino-racetrack complex projects are completed, they still have $300-$500 million left of the $1.2 billion, it is safe to assume they are building a real amusement park. Any less and we would probably end up with a smaller fun complex. From this point on, I will jump to more conclusions when more details are released.

[Mechanic]

Didn't the developer have until September to get this ball rolling? September has come and gone and we've heard nothing. I'm guessing that's what we'll continue to hear.

[805Andrew]

Just read up on this project. I'll believe it when I see it opening its gates. Of course it would be cool if this project actually happened, although its looks like the theme park will just be a fraction of the project. It kind of reminds me of when reading about new ski resort proposals that never happen.

 

In my own personal opinion, I would have rather have this project (or a theme park) be built it in Fresno as there is no theme park whatsoever in Central CA (unless you include Santa Cruz as Central CA). Tracy doesn't have much population, and although it is relatively close to Sacramento, and the Bay Area, the Bay Area already has two theme parks that are rarely super-crowded, and Tracy isn't near a tourist destination, its just a place people drive by on their way to the Bay Area or Lake Tahoe/Sierra Nevada mountains. Fresno itself has half a million people, Clovis adds other 100,000+ people, and there are at least another half a million people in the surrounding area - not including the proximity to Bakersfield or the Central Coast. That of course isn't reason enough as there are areas with more population w/o theme parks. Fresno is centrally located in the center of CA, and is the gateway to Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks. Yosemite is a major tourist destination and is world famous, and Fresno is the closest metropolitan area to Yosemite. A theme park in Fresno could be marketed as part of your Yosemite vacation. A theme park in Tracy, part of your Sacramento vacation? Tracy is kind of out of the way to be part of the Bay Area vacation and would be overshadowed by many other areas near the Bay Area such as Santa Cruz, Monterey, Sonoma, Napa, etc. I may be a little biased towards Fresno as I live only 100 miles away In all honestly I doubt either of these cities will ever see a theme park.

[cfc]

(unless you include Santa Cruz as Central CA)

 

As a former resident of the Central Valley (just a little south of Tracy), my answer to this would be "no," which should make Santa Cruz very happy.

[gisco]

From their FB page:

 

The Spirit of California is happy to announce that the required paperwork was turned in to the proper City of Tracy agent before the September 20th deadline.

Once the process of verification is completed, a press release will be issued. Stay tuned for further developments.

 

They also have a website: Spirit of California

SOme of the details

Edited October 8, 2012 by gisco

[netdvn]

A lot of theme parks were built in the middle of nowhere and still survived (Disneyland, WDW resort, SFGAm, KD, SFGAdv). Granted a lot of these parks were built in large markets that didn't have many major parks to compete against (except maybe Disneyland), but still. It can happen.

 

That being said, with the bad economy and the fact that many larger new projects never got off the ground, this probably won't happen in the near future or the project will be scaled down. I'm not holding my breath for this project.

[gisco]

The number one reason this thing will never fly is because they don't own the land. Unless there is only one owner for the land they want they are screwed. The price will go up exponentially once they start to but up the parcels. They must not have paid to much attention on how Disney aquired the property for WDW.

[jray21]

^You would think that was common knowledge! Yeah, as nice as it looks, I don't see it happening. I just can't believe they decided on Tracy, I mean really, Tracy?

[Mark Park]

The arguement that people in the BA don't go to the Valley so a theme park can't work in Tracy has to about the lamest one I've heard. How many people in LA went to the orange groves in Anaheim before Disneyland was built? Do you realize tha OC had a lot less population in the 1950's than the Central Valley has today? Now add the BA & Sacramento population and you've got a much larger market than Portland or even Houston. As far as the other No.Cal parks - Great America is OK but is too far away from the Sacramento market in the middle of traffic land and offers to little and as someone else has said Sacramentans are more likely to head to the So Cal parks instead. And Six Flags is so ghetto, boring and overpriced now that nobody I know ever goes there. So if they could build a thrill/family theme park and resort in Tracy in just might work.

[larrygator]

A well done amusement park can succeed just about anywhere near a decent size population base with the proper demographic make-up. As long as you don't have extenuating circumstances. i.e.: People aren't looking for amusement park thrills in Hawaii.

[gisco]

I don't question the viability of a park in Tracy, just the funding. Any website that asks for investors in my mind is amateurish.

[Jew]

The arguement that people in the BA don't go to the Valley so a theme park can't work in Tracy has to about the lamest one I've heard. How many people in LA went to the orange groves in Anaheim before Disneyland was built? Do you realize tha OC had a lot less population in the 1950's than the Central Valley has today?

 

That's not really a fair comparison, since Walt Disney had the foresight to see that the region was going to grow and had his media empire to support it. This is an unknown company banking on the population base being able to support a HUGE project.

[robbalvey]

People aren't looking for amusement park thrills in Hawaii.

Or Myrtle Beach, apparently!

[larrygator]

People aren't looking for amusement park thrills in Hawaii.

Or Myrtle Beach, apparently!

 

You mean miles away from the actual beach!

[cfc]

Tracy is located at the "crossroads" of the San Joaquin Valley because two interstates meet there. Even so, it'a not exactly a big "tourist" area.

[lake]

I still think that this project would do much better in Sacramento. Same distance from most of the Bay Area with a much larger population locally based. Plus Reno is right down the road (90-120 minutes.) As for location, when the new downtown arena is built, the current Sleep Train Arena site (and vacant surroundings) are being redeveloped by the City of Sacramento. Would be an interesting proposal.