Theme Park Discussion / Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom Rejects Lease

February 4, 2010
Kentucky Kingdom Rejects Lease
Park to Close

Six Flags announced today that as it nears the scheduled end of its restructuring process, it has decided to reject its lease with the Kentucky State Fair Board relating to the Kentucky Kingdom park. In recent weeks, Six Flags had proposed a new lease arrangement to the fair board that would have enhanced the viability and future of the park. Unfortunately, those proposals were not accepted and the park will cease operations and the company will move expeditiously to re-locate employees and several of the more than 40 rides and attractions to one of its 13 other markets.

"We are deeply disappointed to be leaving such a great fan base in the greater metropolitan area of Louisville and we are grateful to the thousands of employees at Kentucky Kingdom and the millions of guests for their dedication, support and loyalty over the years," said Mark Shapiro, Six Flags President and CEO.

"This action relates solely to Kentucky Kingdom," Shapiro continued. "The substantial lease
payment has been a significant hurdle for this park in recent years. Our other parks, which reside
largely on company-owned land, will be completely unaffected and will open as scheduled for the full 2010 season."

http://www.sixflags....ckykingdom.aspx


It will be interesting to see how ride relocation plays out here for other parks. I think we can expect to see Thunder Run and Twisted Twins smashed to pieces since they are both old and I have heard they were shit anyways. Greezed Lightnin will most likely be scrapped too given its age. T2 might find its way to some other unfortunate park in the same way that Astroworld's SLC is going to a park this year which already has a Batman clone. That leaves Roadrunner Express and Roller Skater, both small family coasters as the only likely relocations since Chang is already gone. They also have a good selection of non-coasters including Deluge that will likely show up at other parks.

Personally, I'd like to see Deluge end up at SFMM in Flashback's old spot. There have been rumors about a new slide that area for several years now. My home park Elitch's, even though it is no longer Six Flags, could really use one of the family coasters too for a "new" addition too.

Wow... that sucks.
-JDP

Always sad to see a park go but i can't say I'm too suprised.

I hope they dont get rid of Greezed Lightnin though. It really could find a good home somewhere

I think it's pretty interesting what they're doing here
In reality the new management has not been buying new rides at all, they've just been reusing ones from parks they closed
Other than that they've just been painting and giving audiotracks to coasters. Only actual new coasters I can think of are Dark Knight and Tony Hawk

Seems like wherever the roller skater goes it's gonna be themed to Mr. Six's dance whatever like the one at SFMM

Why the heck is Chang at SFGAM if they already have Iron Wolf?

storage and they'll move it somewhere else in the future

Looks like Holiday World might get more business this year with the nearest competition gone.

sfstl better be getting some of their shit.

^^I can see SFSTL getting Greezed lighting or La Rondaing it with an SLC.

I'm not that upset by this actually, The closest six flags to me is great america, and I am looking forward to seeing change there, I am also going to see the historic little dipper being moved.

It'd be a stretch, but maybe Holiday World could buy Greezed Lightning. It wouldn't be too expensive, and it's not that much of a thrill ride. I'd say the Voyage is more intense than Greezed Lightning. But HW probably wants to keep the "family" atmosphere. We can dream, right?