Interesting Article dealing with Six Flags New Orleans breaking lease with city

[Darkbeer]

The story is the second on the page, so you do need to scroll down a bit....

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/topnews...01.html#157207

The company that owns Six Flags New Orleans does not want to reopen the flood-ravaged eastern New Orleans theme park, and has sent a proposal to the city that would allow the amusement company to walk away from its 75-year lease, according to documents.

Six Flags Inc. has offered to pay the city $10 million to cover rent to the city and to give the city 66 acres of land the company owns adjacent to the park as well as city 20 percent of its insurance proceeds above $75 million. It is unclear how much insurance money the park will receive. The amusement park has been closed since Hurricane Katrina.

News of the proposal marks a change from Six Flags' public stance so far. Until this disclosure, the company said the park would be closed for the 2006 season but it hoped to reopen the property and was working with its insurers. The company now says it wouldn't make sense to open the park, which was not successful even when the city had nearly a half-million residents.

"It's clear that the people of New Orleans weren't embracing the park" even before the storm, Six Flags spokeswoman Wendy Goldberg said. "We think it presents a mutually beneficial solution to both of us. We thought it was a win-win. The city would get land it could use for other purposes, as well as liquidity."

But Mayor Ray Nagin says that the city plans to hold the New York company to its agreement to operate the park.

"They're not excited about coming back into the market right now. If any company is trying to figure out an exit strategy, they are," Nagin said this week in an interview at The Times-Picayune. "We have a pretty solid agreement with them (requiring them to operate the park for 75 years). They're claiming they can exercise out of it, but they're going to have to pay us."

Much more at the link above.....

[Dutchman]

OK, who didn't see this coming? The park was a money pit before Katrina. Now it's a wreck, there is only a fraction of the population there now and they have more serious things to worry about than SFNO.

[sir clinksalot]

I didn't see that you posted this DB.

I also posted it to Micechat news.

http://www.micechat.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30036

[tloolgb]

I am not suprised. The way Shapiro is walking away left & right from parks made we wonder when he'd put this one up for sale. It really doesn't have any rides worth transporting to other parks and there is no population to support it.

Not suprised at all.

[alex-jmp]

It's a shame what has happened to that park. This was one of the most wonderfull and beautiful parks that I had visited, it will be greatly missed. Cedar Fair had almost purchased the park, wonder if they are still intrested. Anyone rember the Knott's Solstice shirt that listed Jazzland on the back? And before SixFlags bought it they had one of the best simulators based on the pirate Jean Lafitte.

[mrcoaster]

The park was doing poorly even before the hurricane, so once it got hit so bad, it was a no-brainer that it would never open again. Seeing the pictures of the park underwater was pretty sad.