Great America, a beloved Bay Area theme park, to shut down within next 11 years | Hacker News Reader

Great America, a beloved Bay Area theme park, to shut down within next 11 years

sfgate.com

17 pointsBarrera18 comments

> Cedar Fair, owner and operator of the park, announced on Monday that it has sold the land to Bay Area real estate developer Prologis for $310 million.

> Cedar Fair bought the land beneath Great America from the city of Santa Clara in 2019 for $150 million

The quote about the Cedar Fair purchase links to a Mercury News article about the sale:

> The city was forced to sell the property, which it bought in 1985 with money from its former redevelopment agency, as part of a state law that dissolved redevelopment agencies statewide.

> There have been rumors in recent years that another buyer would come along and try to change the property’s use, even though the theme park’s lease wasn’t set to expire until 2074.

So in effect Santa Clara was forced to sell the land to a private corporate which resold it for twice the price after 3 years.

The previous lease didn’t expire until 2074, and presumably was tied to the use as a theme park.

Personally this seems like a big failure to hand a corporation a $150m windfall.

While $150m does seem like a lot, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of that value was in the lease until 2074 that Cedar Fair changed the terms on (they only get a 6-11 year lease now). Since the area is now prime real-estate, it has a lot more value to a land-owner knowing that they won't have to lease it to an amusement park for another 50 years.

> Personally this seems like a big failure to hand a corporation a $150m windfall.

I'm not sure what commercial real estate prices have done since 2019, so it's hard to say if the city priced the land right.

This is why few good things exist in the US. Too much corruption and really perverse incentives with minimal oversight.

This park was originally the sister park of Great America in Gurnee, Illinois (now owned by Six Flags), both originally built in the 1970s by Marriott (the hotel company). Up until the mid 1980s when the parks were sold, they were almost clones of each other (the way Orlando's Magic Kingdom is of Calfornia's Disneyland). You can still see some common features of the parks but they've been diverging for the past 30+ years.

Been going to the Gurnee park since it opened. Curious, why did Six Flags buy the Illinois park and not the California one?

Found these

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1984/04/27/m...

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/09/04/The-citys-ambitious-...

https://culture.fandom.com/wiki/California%27s_Great_America...

None of them really say. It's not clear what order negotiations happened in, so it's possible Bally Manufacturing (Six Flags) had no interest in the Santa Clara location (smaller market? too much debt?), or that Mariott's got a better offer from a real estate developer. It's safe to assume the park was offered to Bally since they're already in that industry, so it's a turn-key purchase. The Gurnee park sold for $114.5M, and the Santa Clara one for $101M, but I think Gurnee effectively had more land.

Interestingly, Santa Clara bought it for $101M in 1984. That includes buildings and rides, but they sold the land to Cedar Fair for $150M in 2019. One of those numbers seems off. Santa Clara also bought it in ~1984 to save it from being developed into an industrial park.

> It was not announced what Prologis, the new owner, plans to do with the property after the rides have shuttered.

It's Prologis. That land will be warehouses at the earliest opportunity.

This is a huge disappointment and will remove a great destination for kids in the Bay Area. Super bummed.

First Marine World (in RWC), then Great America (in St Clara). Guess there still is Gilroy Gardens.

Isn't Marine World now Six Flags Discovery Kingdom?

Yes, but they moved to the north bay from the peninsula.

And even that might not last all that long either. I've heard they've financially taken a beating the last few years. Plus that is a giant lot of land, of a size that's becoming impossible to find in the bay area.

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31903838

As much as I am sad to see it go the peninsula does need way more housing.

Housing is not getting built here.

Even if you ignore who the buyer is, the neighborhood is office parks, a convention center, a stadium, and a golf course. The location has good freeway access and OK mass transit access.

It would probably be more offices or possibly entertainment, but the A's seem destined to leave the Bay, and I don't think SAP Center is that old. Could also be a shopping district. I don't think people want to live near stadium traffic.

I see you havent searched prologis

Reply on news.ycombinator.com