new update this is great news for atvers.I don't think six flags over florida is not going happen.My dad went to work today and he put this up.
they release this in june 2005.
please read i got this off web site.
http://www.lostparks.com/never.htmlSix Flags Florida
Yes, Six Flags did once look into buying Circus World. They passed. A Jacksonville politician tried to get them to build in that area. They looked, but they passed. They once owned Stars Hall of Fame and Six Flags Atlantis in Florida -- they sold them. Six Flags has not, to date, announced any plans for a Florida theme park whatsoever, and consistently denies all rumors.
Desipte this, not a year goes by without a coaster enthusiast announcing that their uncle's brother's friend's friend is a sewer worker who says they're working on a secret construction project to build a new Six Flags in Florida. Never happens.
It would seem many enthusiasts are laboring under a basic misunderstanding of how major construction projects actually happen in the real world. A business like Six Flags does not and cannot just buy a big plot of land and start building. Major projects like theme parks simply do not get to the construction stage without publicity following a lengthy zoning approval process before the local government. There are permits to be applied for, at which point the project becomes a matter of public record and the local media jump all over it. Environmental impact statements must be filed. Zoning hearings must take place. Usually, a group of locals makes a very noisy protest over it (see the history of most other modern theme parks). Public corporations like Six Flags must also inform shareholders what they're up to, so major projects will also be mentioned in their SEC filings and annual reports.
What this means is, if you haven't been seeing reports in the news for the past year about the planning and permitting process for such a theme park, and some twit assures you that they know someone who is involved in clearing land, or digging ditches, or breaking ground for one -- you can be assured that they are either delusional or lying to you. You simply can't clear the first bush or turn a spade of dirt on your property without a building permit.
There are no secret theme park construction projects. "What about Disney?" the enthusiast complains. "Disney World was built in secret." No, sorry. The aquisition of land was carried out mostly in secret, but the Orlando Sentinal blew Disney's cover before even that was finished. Secrecy was needed in this case because Disney was buying up huge tracts of land to put together a site of more than 20,000 acres, much more than could be aquired from a single land owner. A Six Flags park would require less than a thousand acres that could be aquired in the single purchase of a large farm or ranch.
Construction on Walt Disney World, on the other hand, didn't begin until several years later after a very public act of the Florida Legislature approved it, several press conferences were held, and years of publicity announced the fact. Look at every major recent theme park building project, completed or not (Visionland, Jazzland, the reopening of Magic Springs, Disney's California Adventure, Entercitement City, World of Oz, etc.) and you can find a paper trail going back for years in the press, from proposal through construction, with big press events held at the groundbreaking ceremonies.
New construction is also unlikely right now in this already overcrowded market. Orlando's theme parks depend on long distance tourism, while Six Flags style ride parks rely more on regional visitors on daytrips. The people elsewhere in the country don't need to visit a Six Flags park on an expensive Florida vacation -- chances are they already live near one back home. They come to Florida to get something they can't get at home: Disney and Universal. That leaves the locals market, which is already served by Busch Gardens, as well as the Disney and Universal parks (which is why they offer resident discounts on annual passes and other resident deals), and the revamped with rides Cypress Gardens.
While local enthusiasts always predict that a thrill ride oriented park would do better than Disney or Universal, that just shows a basic misunderstanding of the market. The money is in family travel, not roving packs of teen enthusiasts. Boardwalk and Baseball tried going the thrill ride route and never made a profit. Islands of Adventure was touted as a Disney-beater by enthusiasts before it opened, yet even Disney's half-day Animal Kingdom sees more annual visitors. It's easy for coaster enthusiasts to picture a Florida Six Flags park the equal of, say, Magic Mountain (which still attracts fewer visitors than Disneyland in the same market and can't even stay open 365 days a year), but that's in no way what a newly constructed park would look like. It takes years for a park to get that many coasters, one or two at a time, year after year. Even if Six Flags did build in Florida the park would look more like Visionland or Jazzland when it opened than a Disney-class park due to the starting investment required. (Islands of Adventure cost nearly a billion dollars and enthusiasts still think it needs more rides). Still think Six Flags would outdo Disney?
Disney also has an advantage in this market no outsider has: the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Back in the 1960's the Florida Legislature basically gave Disney the ability to build whatever they want, whenever they want, without a lengthy approval process. If they wanted to, in the time it would take Six Flags to get approval, Disney could build their own competing ride park and open first (as they managed to open Disney-MGM Studios between Universal's announcement of a Studios theme park and the actual opening). Disney has a history of building their own versions of the competition and outselling them (note the similarities between Animal Kingdom and Busch, The Living Seas and Sea World, Disney-MGM and Universal Studios, Pleasure Island and the now defunct Church Street Station, their waterparks and Wet 'n Wild, Disney's California Adventure and Knott's Berry Farm, Disney's West Side and Citywalk...) and Six Flags knows this, making the huge investment an Orlando park would take a huge risk.
Also, consider this: current Six Flags management doesn't develop parks from scratch. They prefer to buy existing parks and convert them. That means the only likely possibility for a Six Flags theme park in Florida would be if Busch or Universal or Cypress Gardens decided to sell out, and Six Flags decided to buy, and could swing the funding. As I update this article in mid-2005, Six Flags is still in no financial condition to build or buy a new park -- they have sold off their European parks, sold Six Flags World of Adventure, and still have a rather large debt load from past aquisitions and improvement projects. They're not likely to build anything soon, in any market, let alone one as crowded as Central Florida.
What about elsewhere in Florida? South Florida has a large population, but it's still in the outer range for the Orlando parks, while Southwest Florida can reach Busch Gardens. It's an old population, however, with a smaller group in the young theme park demographic than would appear at first glance. There's also a limitation in driving range -- build a park in Miami and you serve that area but Orlando's to the North, there's only a small population to the South, and nothing but water to the East, making the population sparse in the outlying areas compared to parks in other areas of the country that can draw from miles around them. It could possibly support a smallish park, but the track record for getting new projects approved (see Blockbuster Park and Interama, among others) isn't good,and Pirates World failed. Boomers could stand watching: at least the Dania Beach Hurricane shows a roller coaster has some draw in the area. Maybe somebody will go in someday, but it sure won't be Six Flags any time soon.
The Jacksonville area is another possibility, but when the local government practically offered to give Six Flags free land in the booming 1990's Six Flags turned them down. To the South of Jacksonville the older population of some of the other counties would be expected to fight any big development (the head of the St. Johns County Tourist and Convention Bureau even said in the late 1990's that they don't want a Six Flags there), and don't forget that Marco Polo Park flopped. That area is also still within reach of Orlando, as well as the ever growing Wild Adventures in Valdosta, Georgia.
The panhandle has become a more likely target now that Miracle Strip is closing, but the population including tourists couldn't support anything much bigger than that park already was. A big park will not be going in there any time soon (yeah, I know, a Six Flags has been rumored for years in that area, but they have always flatly denied those rumors -- it's just not true).
I've also heard rumors for the Spring Hill area and Sebring -- also not gonna happen. Look at a map: modern theme parks are not built without major Interstate Highway access. A theme park could never get approval to add that kind of traffic to clogged US 19 or US 27: every retiree home owners association for miles would protest it. Parks you can't get to go out of business.
The idea of a Six Flags Florida is still just wishful thinking on the part of coaster enthusiasts. If they ever do decide to build in Florida you won't have to hear it from your Mother's Brother's friend's dental hygenist's bridesmaid's nephew -- it'll be in the news long before construction begins.
thanks,
this good news for atvers.
amhighlander
