Fierce Pancake

Busch Gardens Houston was over along the east side of I10 adjacent to the refinery. Mid to late 70s, they had some mild rides like a river ride. Lots of plants and animals. I've got some footage of the park I dumped from 8mm, it's hosted over on SixFlagsHouston.Com. Scroll down to about the 5th video listed.

Ya know, I think a golf course somewhere bought quite a few of the trees. But for the most part, its a shame the razed the place without any real plans.

Adventure Bay was not open in 2006.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070111/nyth086.html?.v=72 Six Flags has sold 7 parks including Splashtown in Spring TX to PARC 7F. Fate of the property not clear, seems like it will remain in operation for the short term.

When Texas Tornado/Thriller was removed from the German Fair circuit and located at Astroworld, Six Flags removed most of the flashy lighting the ride once had. The guy who put up this website has a lot of the original lighting in his garage, I've been over there and seen it.

Isn't the City of Houston Health & Human Services department moving in?

Kong at the end of River of No Return was always cool. Too bad he caught fire and had to be scrapped. That ride was ruined once they built XLR8 on top of it anyway. Only the singer in Erasure's gay, btw. But... pretty surprising that anyone could see him perform and not jump to that conclusion. He was dressed in a tutu during their Astroworld show for the Wild tour if I remember correctly.

No need to invest, Clark's did it for them. The A/V stuff is still there now for notsuoH version 2. First time I've been back to that place was to see Million Year Dance perform last week. Sound was good.

Paramount Parks no longer exist, the ink just dried on a deal where they were purchased by Cedar Fair. CF is in no position now to buy or build another park anytime soon. Busch is very unlikely, they already have a park in San Antonio and frankly when was the last time AB built a park? In fact, they SOLD their Ohio park a few years ago (to Six Flags!), if that's any indication how interested Busch Gardens is in expanding.

On the subject of the drain being pulled, looks like flooded Six Flags New Orleans is going down for good. http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/ind..._30.html#157149 So that's three parks in our southern region definitely wiped away this past six months: Astroworld, Adventure Bay, and now SFNO. Remains to be seen if Splashtown soon joins that list.

I expect few of these parks will end up being dismantled like Astroworld. Elitch Gardens in Denver seems to pose the most risk, being land-locked downtown on desireable land. Elitch was moved before only ten years ago. Splashtown will probably find a buyer, it does pretty good business and is far enough away from Schlitterbahn to still be viable. It's not a big money property on exceptionally valuable land. Darien Lake also already has a potential buyer lined up to keep it open as a park. Magic Mountain is interesting. It has a lot of problems. Company wide the new Six Flags management wants to take things in a more family friendly direction but there's no way Magic Mountain can compete with Disney, Knott's, and Legoland in this region. Magic Mountain was built up into a thrill park by the previous regime, the same guys who created the enormous company debt which is forcing Shapiro's hand to divest properties. Cedar Fair just finished buying the Paramount chain, and they have their own park just an hour or so away. I don't see CF buying MM or any other regional park operator for that matter. The place just doesn't fit with the image other operators like Silver Doller City or Anheiser Busch want. So things could go either way here, the park could remain open with a new owner or it could be stripped and sold for the land just like SFAW.

I've been to little carnivals in the Georgia Dome (IAAPA convention) and it's kind of nifty. And yeah, the operator of this thing is "Murphy Brothers Exposition". It's a funny URL though and legit to click on - be warned it plays some funky music. Still can't believe they registered that one. Anyway, here's a little more info: "World's Largest Indoor Amusement Park" Description: World's Largest Indoor Amusement Park. Rides include DropZone, Century Wheel, Bumper Cars, Spin Out and many more. June 22-July 4; Hours: Monday-Thursday; 6 p.m.-11 p.m. Friday; 6 p.m.-Midnight Saturday; 12 p.m.-Midnight Sunday; Noon-11 p.m. Tickets: $20 for all, children 2 years and older need a ticket toenter. Price includes entry and rides. Price does not includefood/beverage and games of chance. Tickets go on sale Friday, June 9 at10 a.m. at all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 713.629.3700, onlineat www.ticketmaster.com and Reliant Stadium South ticket windows.

http://www.murphybrothersexposition.com/ This is the carnival operator that will be in the dome for two weeks. I believe tickets are $20, since that's what they are listed for on Ticketmaster.

Interestingly, Kickerillo had apparently offered Six Flags $8m more than the $77m from Angel/McIver but Kickerillo wanted an extra month to close the deal. Six Flags dumped the land in a hurry instead. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3900739.html

That's the impression I got too. Six Flags had no serious bidders for what they expected, grew impatient, and then sold for whatever they could get to another realtor to get what cash they could now. Reminds me of how Six Flags put the company itself up for sale not too long ago and had no bidders either.

A huge mistake in a long line of huge mistakes the former management team at Six Flags made in the last five years. Maybe not as detrimental to the company's performance as what transpired in Ohio and Europe, but far more of concern to us in Houston. The point is that it was a needless waste.

Back when Kieran Burke (former CEO of Six Flags) opted last September to have Cushman and Wakefield put this land on the market, they were confident they could get between $95m-$145m for the property. Rising land value was the primary party line for why they chose to close the park. Now, eight months later, we find they couldn't get anyone to bite for the land in that range. Further, Six Flags seems to have grown impatient waiting for a buyer so they offloaded it for $77m. If you look at Angel/McIver's site ( http://www.angelmciver.com/ ) it's obvious they aren't a developer but just another real-estate agent middleman. Six Flags also spent about $21m demolishing the place, leaving them with about $56m cash left. So basically, nothings going on with this property yet, it's basically still on the market. Six Flags gained a quick $56m cash which barely dents their $2+ billion debt and a couple of the old rides are showing up in other parks instead of new attractions (quite a few rides are lost forever and sent to the scrapyard, including Texas Cyclone, Viper, XLR8, Astroway, Bamboo Shoot, Serpent...)

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/ar...9&Symbol=US:PKS excerpt: The Company also announced that it has entered into a contract to sell the 104-acre site of AstroWorld in Houston, Texas. The property - which has been cleared of all buildings, rides and structures in anticipation of sale - is being sold for $77 million; the closing date is expected to be early June. The sale is subject to customary closing conditions. No buyer yet announced.

http://thefacts.com/story.lasso?ewcd=c2825ff782517bab Looks as if at least the palm trees were saved and purchased by a local golf course.

Doubt anything will be built within Houston. Land is cheaper outside the loop. Bill White had his chance to negotiate with Six Flags, though in fairness there wasn't much he could do if Six Flags had their mind made up that Astroworld gets the slash 'n burn to help pay $2 billion in debt. Didn't help relations much that Six Flags decided to sue the city over the parking situation.

Think I counted about three trees left standing. Would you pay $8 - $12 just to park for a Wal-Mart? That's what the city charges to enter these lots.

http://www.aynart.com/astroworldphoto.htm Panoramic photo of what the scene looks like currently. Larger version at the link above.

Texas Cyclone was demolished this morning.

http://www.astroworldauction.com/ First weekend of Jan: equipment, rides, buildings, etc... The Dentzel Carousel and Steam Engine locomotive are included.

Don't kid yourself. Six Flags has no plans to build a new park anywhere, let alone here. They are removing the rides from Astroworld as we speak and other parks around the country are getting ready to absorb them (except Cyclone, which will be soon destroyed). They've let go 90% of the employees, only a handful have been offered jobs to stay with Six Flags. Honestly, Six Flags has not built a park sinice the 1970s and that was completely different management. The current guys in charge have never built a park and they never will. You can completely discount the notion of a new Six Flags Houston. Splashtown's it now. For that matter, I'm not aware of anyone else with designs to build a park. We've got a big city here, but none of the big chains are in the business of building new properties from scratch in North America. Your only hope is a smaller indepdant like Tilman Fertitta, but that guy's involved in so many other local projects that a theme park here would compete with. So I don't know who's got the money and the guts to build here but you can bet on one thing, since we lost Six Flags there's going to be a long wait. So enjoy the Kemah boardwalk, the new Schlitterbahn waterpark, and your travelling carnivals, that's all Houston has on the horizon for years to come.