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Koch family re-opening Kentucky Kingdom

I love Pat. Had a few convos with her when I visited Holiday World. Quite the lady.

I hope they don't open any new rides though.. that would mean I'd have to go BACK. :lol:
 
I have my doubts of course, but I feel like they could pull something good off. That's not saying the park would be profitable, but they don't seem the kind of people who would be stupid and invest in something they didn't feel like they could handle. Maybe a stupid assumption on my part, but I do have faith in what they can pull off. That also means I'll have to take a trip there finally, assuming they do something good with it.

Surprised I'm only hearing about this now. I've seen the lovely little horse on the main page for a few days now and only just bothered to read the story.
 
...and stop.

Press Release said:
Bluegrass Boardwalk withdraws from project

(June 15, 2012) Louisville, Kentucky —Following nine months of planning to reopen Louisville’s shuttered amusement park, Bluegrass Boardwalk, Inc. today withdrew from the project.

“We entered into this discussion last October with full expectation of leasing the park,” says Bluegrass Boardwalk CEO Natalie Koch. “However, we have come to the realization that leasing a park rather than owning it would take us too far from the business model my family has followed for more than 60 years.”

Koch says she and her partners were financially prepared to meet the challenge of reopening the abandoned park, however the many layers of governmental regulations and stipulations ultimately caused them to withdraw.

Koch says she and her partners believe reopening the Louisville park is still a worthwhile project and they wish the future operator well.

“It’s been a lifelong dream for my family to operate a second park,” says Koch, whose family owns and operates Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana. “It’s hard to walk away from what we believed was a winning partnership for Kentucky and our team. But at the end of the day, the terms of the project did not fit our business model. It was time to withdraw.”

A letter terminating the proposed lease agreement was delivered to the Kentucky State Fair Board this afternoon.
Click to expand...
http://bluegrassboardwalk.com/

:-(
 
Fair Board apparently wants to run the whole shebang while the Koch family wanted to run the whole shebang as well. Apparently the limitations and restrictions were getting worse and worse on the Koch family, so they backed out.

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Damn.

I don't get this part...
“We entered into this discussion last October with full expectation of leasing the park,” says Bluegrass Boardwalk CEO Natalie Koch. “However, we have come to the realization that leasing a park rather than owning it would take us too far from the business model my family has followed for more than 60 years.”
Click to expand...
The Koch's have followed a successful business model (ie: owning a park outright) for 60 years. They enter an agreement to reopen Kentucky Kingdom with the "full expectation of leasing the park". All of a sudden, they realise leasing isn't what they want to do so they pull out. Fishy. Surely they must have realised this when they produced their original plan for KK? Won't the State Board (or whatever it's called) allow them to purchase the park/land? I reckon the leasing problem wasn't the cause of pulling out, just a convenient excuse to drop the project.

Sigh, oh well, have a photo of Pat Koch looking fab.
4173826989_4e5e65942d.jpg
 
Bad news boys and girls..

We’re so sorry to share this sad and disappointing news. Thank you to all who expressed their unbridled enthusiasm in this project. We will remove this website plus our Facebook and Twitter pages within the week. The following news release was emailed to the news media this afternoon:

Bluegrass Boardwalk withdraws from project

(June 15, 2012) Louisville, Kentucky —Following nine months of planning to reopen Louisville’s shuttered amusement park, Bluegrass Boardwalk, Inc. today withdrew from the project.

“We entered into this discussion last October with full expectation of leasing the park,” says Bluegrass Boardwalk CEO Natalie Koch. “However, we have come to the realization that leasing a park rather than owning it would take us too far from the business model my family has followed for more than 60 years.”

Koch says she and her partners were financially prepared to meet the challenge of reopening the abandoned park, however the many layers of governmental regulations and stipulations ultimately caused them to withdraw.

Koch says she and her partners believe reopening the Louisville park is still a worthwhile project and they wish the future operator well.

“It’s been a lifelong dream for my family to operate a second park,” says Koch, whose family owns and operates Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana. “It’s hard to walk away from what we believed was a winning partnership for Kentucky and our team. But at the end of the day, the terms of the project did not fit our business model. It was time to withdraw.”

A letter terminating the proposed lease agreement was delivered to the Kentucky State Fair Board this afternoon.
Click to expand...

Shame. :(
 
According to an Inter iew with Ed Hart, he wont be coming back because of the Fair Board. Plus if this deal were to go through (which it has, but this was from a couple months ago), it would cost Louisville a **** ton of money in taxes to fix.

From what I hear over the cutting of this was the Koch family were getting more and more stipulations put upon them BY the Fair Board.

Also heard rumors that the Fair Board want to take over the park for themselves.

In relation to the topic, this does suck. This would have been something for them to combat Kings Island with as Holiday World may not turn into the thrill seeker paradise that Bluegrass Boardwalk would have been.

The Koch family are definitely going to be getting flack over this from everywhere because when it originally got pushed back, people were making claims that they were going to keep it closed to make sure Holiday World was their main park and get all the publicity and revenue while the Boardwalk would have just been a major water park with crap rides.

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Meh.

The Fair Board was a problem for 6F for years. That's why they were so eager to get out as a part of the bankruptcy.

The Koch family was wise to get out while they could. I think they just can't say that the Fair Board are a bunch of idiots in a press release, so they went with the banal excuse they gave.
 
The Fair Board claims that they are in talks with two other park operators in the US?

Right.

Not 6F. Not CF. Not Disney.

Herschend? Maybe.
Merlin? Do they have any management contracts?
Parque Reunidos? Same question.
CNL won't do it. They buy parks to have others run them.

I think they're lying to cover their asses.
 
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