The hypothetical Great America Resort

[BLADE]

Great information Rob! I would love to see those images.
That is amazing the 2 different branches of Marriott's did not know what the other was doing.

[RobSFGAm]

Marriott would have had less coasters for sure, but as you pointed out, better food and theming.
When I was there last week I showed my kids the little door next to the funnel cakes by the whizzer where the 5 cent root beer place was. The loss of the trolly ride was one of the first de-themeing move.

[BLADE]

Marriott would have had less coasters for sure, but as you pointed out, better food and theming.
When I was there last week I showed my kids the little door next to the funnel cakes by the whizzer where the 5 cent root beer place was. The loss of the trolly ride was one of the first de-themeing move.

I just heard about this 5 cent rootbeer place a few days ago. What is it now?

[BrianPlencner]

^ That room is now used for Storage.

--Brian

[RobSFGAm]

I posted the 2 images (artist renderings) to Flickr because I added notes to the image as it is hard to see everything with the blue print. Just hover over the squares on the image and it will show what they are.

http://flic.kr/p/8tQqTU

http://flic.kr/p/8tMmRt

These are suppose to work as short links, if not let me know.

[BLADE]

Thanks, Brian.

Anybody know why the park could never get the village to change zoning that would allow employee housing back in the 90's? Noise doesn't seem like a good enough reason. If that could have been built south of the employee lot, or around the employee entrance, very few homes are near there.

[BrianPlencner]

No problem.

I did a search, and here is a cached page from google that talks about the monorail.


http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us

Scroll down to almost the bottom of the page, under the section "Exploring Alternatives to Automobile Transportation".

With it being cached, the images don't show, but the text comes through.

--Brian

EDIT:

Here is another, from the Chicago Tribune from 11-11-1996.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996 ... developers

[BLADE]

Awesome Rob! I'm really glad you could find these images.

Brian, thanks too.

[deja blues]

Kalaharis are all in the north and open year round.

Yeah, but they are mostly indoors. I can't even fathom SFGam being indoors that would be the most expensive/ ugliest looking thing ever haha. SFGam could have an indoor water park like Mount Olympus, but you still have most of the park closed the entire year.

[david]

Why did they even need approval for this? Was the zoning area different?

[BLADE]

Yes David it is. It's way too complicated for me to explain. You would be better clicking on the link I posted at the beginning of this topic. It will take you more than an hour to read it.

[Ilovthevu']

I personally don't think this would have worked that great unless they had figured a way in order for people to walk across the other side. The thing with Universal is that you are trapped within that commercialism around the parks. The thing with Disney is that the Downtown Disney is like the closest thing to the outside world as one would say over there. It takes awhile to get out of Disney property. For Six Flags case, you say across the highway for all this stuff, and if you can drive, that's very close to Gurnee Mills (across the highway), so you are still competing with all that other stuff unless they can trap people to walking to the other side, or taking an underground train or something. Granted though, you have a Six Flags hotel, and they have some sort of perk that would help that, but for the other entertainment stuff, I just don't see a HUGE hit for this compared to, they would make some money off of it.

I again think this just wouldn't work because there is so much stuff in that area already. It's not like at Cedar Point where the mall is much further away from the park, and than you go into some olden town of nothing great, and than the last outside thing really is Mcdonald's, and the rest is Cedar Point stuff. A park that I think would be a great idea to do this if the PARK WAS BETTER which I don't think it would deserve something like this is Six Flags America as there wasn't much around that area that I know of. I think Dorney Park there didn't seem a lot either around that area. However, I think the reason why those areas aren't as built up is because those parks aren't getting high attendance amount of people compared to a Six Flags Great America. Now that I think of it, Magic Mountain didn't have a ton right near it. There was some, but I think the mall was further like going to "Cedar Point's mall" to get to it!

[david]

The point was to have a water park on one side, and you can drive to the other side if you want. Not like the Kentucky State Fair sort of thing.

[Galvan]

Anyone notice anything missing in those artist renditions of the plan?


5 SFGAmWorld points to the first person to guess.

[bsntech]

Even better than driving to the other side - I'm sure something could be worked out where they could make a walkway/path/tram that would go under the tollway to the other side.

[rct2wizard360]

Anyone notice anything missing in those artist renditions of the plan?


5 SFGAmWorld points to the first person to guess.

OMG TEH RAGING BULLLL!!!11111111

+5

[Ilovthevu']

The point was to have a water park on one side, and you can drive to the other side if you want. Not like the Kentucky State Fair sort of thing.

I see the plans, and there is a lot more than a waterpark going on over there! You have a waterpark, a hotel, shopping and restaurants (which is what Universal CityWalk is but again you are basically trapped there if you want to go a Universal theme park. You literally walk through all those restaurants, shops, and movie theaters while going to the park.), another parking lot of course, and a convention center. The hotel, the shopping, and the restaurants are competing with the outside forces of Gurnee Mills, and all those restaurants, and the hotels around the area including the ones outside the park. And on top of it, you have that hotel across the road from the park (near the waterpark instead of the regular park) instead of across the street from the park. Plus, what I see is that, for that side across from the regular park, what is there as the main draw? It's supposed to be the waterpark, and the waterpark isn't even open all the days the regular park is open.

I personally think Six Flags is better off buying off one of those hotels across from them, and than having the perks to stay there like early admission for certain rides. Maybe, try to buy both hotels across the street, and making them one bigger hotel. Six Flags just would make so much money with their own hotel because when people come to Six Flags, and if they are offered some type of perk, they will stay there because of the extra reward. They just have to make it something good, and not like $5 off admission if you stay here type of thing.

[rct2wizard360]

The hotel, the shopping, and the restaurants are competing with the outside forces of Gurnee Mills, and all those restaurants, and the hotels around the area including the ones outside the park. And on top of it, you have that hotel across the road from the park (near the waterpark instead of the regular park) instead of across the street from the park.

If you don't like the idea of competition between businesses, then please leave the United States of America.

[BLADE]

I was never aware these plans crumbled because the park refused to make fixes on Washington. That is absolutely stupid. If we had that, right now, our park could easily be #4 or #5 in the country.

Although deeper in debt, it would have paid itself off. Now Six Flags must rent out corporate office space in New York and Texas.

Oh Six Flags... sometimes they are just... stupid.

I just checked a birds eye view satelitte image of Washington St. It looks like Six Flags would have had to replace the tollway bridge to widen Washington, because the bridge supports are right next to the road. I couldn't guess the cost of doing this, but I'm sure it's at least 8 figures. I can see why they passed.

[Ilovthevu']

The hotel, the shopping, and the restaurants are competing with the outside forces of Gurnee Mills, and all those restaurants, and the hotels around the area including the ones outside the park. And on top of it, you have that hotel across the road from the park (near the waterpark instead of the regular park) instead of across the street from the park.

If you don't like the idea of competition between businesses, then please leave the United States of America.

Of course, competition is a fact in the US and it's good to have competition, but if City Walk were by all the other stuff, and Downtown Disney was also around other stores, and restaurants, those definitely would not be getting the money they do like they now are. Those 2 are very secluded, and that was my point. SFGAm isn't so secluded from the outside.

[Luxornv]

The hotel, the shopping, and the restaurants are competing with the outside forces of Gurnee Mills, and all those restaurants, and the hotels around the area including the ones outside the park. And on top of it, you have that hotel across the road from the park (near the waterpark instead of the regular park) instead of across the street from the park.

If you don't like the idea of competition between businesses, then please leave the United States of America.

Of course, competition is a fact in the US and it's good to have competition, but if City Walk were by all the other stuff, and Downtown Disney was also around other stores, and restaurants, those definitely would not be getting the money they do like they now are. Those 2 are very secluded, and that was my point. SFGAm isn't so secluded from the outside.

If this had been done, I don't see them starting right away with any shops or a mall like thing considering Gurnee Mills is right there. Perhaps they could have worked out a deal with Gurnee Mills and eventually buy the complex out. I agree though that it would be difficult for SF to pull off something of this scale with the amount of business in the area by that time. However, if this had been done when Marriott still owned the park, then we could be looking at a smaller Disney World right now.

[coasterkid94]

Can you imagine what a Six Flags "city complex" would look like in the present day? Probably littered with advertising just like the parks.

[tribar]

Your probably right

[BP317]

We are talking a plan that would make Gurnee become "Sandusky 2" and the reason why this plan fell through?
Six Flags didn't feel it had to pay for road improvements on Washington Street.
It is probably the biggest failure ever on Six Flags part.

It was not only that it was also disputes with the Illinois Tollway. It is a standard practice of doing business that whenever a company is going to do a massive project like that, the government helps pay for road improvements. It was dumb for the Village of Gurnee not to cooperate with the negotiations as they would be making a lot more revenue with the increase in tourism.

In the late 80s when Disney was negotiating terms with the French government for Euro-Disneyland, Eisner told the French government that the company would only buy the land at it's agricultural price (instead of the much more expensive development price). When the government said "yeah...right," Disney walked. The government then agreed to sell them the land at it's agricultural price. Then Eisner told the government that they needed to expand Paris' transit system out to Disney's property. When the French government said "yeah...right," Disney walked. The government then agreed to expand the rail out to Disney's property. Similar thing with Kraken at Sea World Orlando, the city refused to approve it's construction then Sea World started looking at other locations to relocate to. The city was more than happy to approve Sea Worlds new coaster once they found this out.

It's the negotiations process, that's the way it goes. Sometimes it takes years to work out all the details, and at the time Six Flags decided to sell off the extra land to pay off rising debts instead of continuing negotiations. Considering Al Weber's "we need to focus on being a regional theme park operator" press statements I wouldn't count on any hotel/entertainment distrcit plans being considered.

[BLADE]

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who posted on this topic. I learned a lot of new things I didn't know about beforehand.