Edward Hart has named his proposed Nashville theme park Thrillopolis. But Fantasyland might be more apt, because the chances of it opening on his terms are the stuff dreams are made of.
The chief executive officer of the Louisville, Ky.-based Themeparks LLC wants Metro to guarantee $127 million in 30-year revenue bonds to fund most of the cost of the proposed $193 million attraction. A strict cash outlay isn’t on the table—just the city guaranteeing the bonds, which would be paid back with sales taxes the attraction would generate.
But city officials say not only that they’re not sure such a scheme is legal; they doubt whether city involvement is good public policy at all.
“Everyone thinks that it would be nice for us to have a theme park,” Purcell tells the Scene. “The question is, should we take $127 million in public resources and put it to that use?”
The park would be located at the 80-acre industrial Steiner-Liff site in the shadow of Adelphia (for now) Coliseum. But while Metro finance director David Manning is examining the finer print of Hart’s proposal—which Hart characterizes as a “revenue generator” for the city—to say Manning and Mayor Purcell are circumspect would be an understatement.
During his tenure as mayor, Purcell has focused his efforts on quality-of-life issues, including sidewalks, schools and public safety. Meanwhile, he has eschewed the big-ticket items that the administration before him promoted. Backing a theme park would mark a deviation from that approach to governing.
The mayor explains that “Nashville does not print money, never has and never will. The money we have is collected from the taxpayer.” Purcell also seems to sense that the public echoes his fiscally conservative outlook. “The people in Nashville understand that local commitments are not free and are not without risk.” Purcell adds that it’s “imperative for the city that when we invest, we’re confident of the return and the risk we’re taking.”
Perhaps most damning, Purcell wonders why Hart hasn’t sought a bank loan instead of asking Metro to back his park. “For returns that are certain, there is a great amount of capital in a market system like ours. For people with ideas to come to a city asking for funding, that usually means that private investors have concluded that it doesn’t meet their standard of risk.”
Purcell also says that Metro has spent a net $165 million on the city’s two major civic monuments since they opened: Adelphia Coliseum and the Gaylord Entertainment Center. That figure includes everything from maintenance to debt service to operating expenses. Backing bonds on a theme park is a different venture, but for Purcell it hits the same nerve.
“Is this what we should commit the city’s bonding capacity to?” he says. “Using $127 million in that way means we no longer have the capacity for any other purpose.”
And, of course, Manning is no pushover himself. “The proposal...calls for the city to take the risk on a business enterprise,” he says. “We’re taking a risk that this group of entrepreneurs can perform over a 30-year period.”
The Herculean task Hart now faces is to convince Metro that the tax revenues Thrillopolis would generate for the city outweigh Metro’s risk. Based on projections that he solicited from a Chicago research firm, the affable executive says that if Thrillopolis attracted only 90 percent of the 2 million annual visitors Opryland typically lured during its run, he’d make a healthy profit. More importantly, the city would have enough money under that scenario to make its bond payments with some left over.
To sweeten the pot, Hart says that he’d also turn over to Metro his annual parking revenue, which he estimates at $3 million.
“For every dollar Metro pays back on the bonds, they’ll receive $1.25 from parking and $1.60 from direct and indirect tax revenues,” he says.
Like a polished salesman, Hart likes to answer questions before they’re asked. Considering what would happen in a less-than-ideal situation, Hart says that even half the crowds Opryland attracted would mean enough tax revenue for the city to fulfill its bond obligation. And he doubts the park would be unpopular, because Thrillopolis would be bigger and better than Opryland, with more exciting roller coasters, creative rides and even a water park.
“I think it’s unreasonable [to assume] that a superior product would do half of what Opryland did 10 years ago,” he says.
Hart says that he needs the credit from Metro, because financing an enterprise of this magnitude privately would mean taking on too much debt. Still, he says his company is prepared to invest $66 million and an additional $34 million in reinvestment over a two- to four-year period. ThemeParks LLC currently owns and operates only one other park, Magic Springs and Crystal Falls in Hot Springs, Ark.
But Hart’s otherwise infectious enthusiasm about Thrillopolis is not giving anybody the fever at City Hall. While the Purcell administration hasn’t yet told Hart to take the next train to Louisville, it has asked the University of Tennessee’s Center for Business and Economic Research to provide an independent evaluation of Thrillopolis’ potential economic impact.
“It’s a pretty big leap of faith we’re being asked to take,” Manning says.
When Purcell opted to change the Independence Day celebration from Riverfront Park to Centennial, downtown merchants huffed and puffed, and the mayor quickly reversed his decision. The moral of the story is that while Purcell can be stubborn, he can also be swayed. But Thrillopolis doesn’t seem to have a dedicated constituency of supporters, downtown or anywhere else, to inspire Purcell to give the park a more favorable look. That’s surprising, because summer tourism has dipped dramatically since Opryland closed. One would think that a new theme park would fill that void.
“There doesn’t seem to be a big hue and cry for it,” says Steve Gibson, the interim executive director of the Nashville Downtown Partnership. Independent from the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Partnership serves as a downtown management organization representing property owners and businesses. “The park doesn’t seem to be a hot topic of conversation. It might become that, but it hasn’t yet.”
At-large Metro Council member David Briley wonders why there doesn’t seem to be more support for Thrillopolis. “Three years ago, when we ran for election, everyone complained about losing Opryland,” he recalls. “If I were the park people, I would have expected the reception to be warmer than it’s been.”
Briley says that a theme park could bring back vacationers who have forgotten about Nashville since Opryland became a shopping mall. “Our economy developed to where family entertainment has been an important part of the local economy,” he says. “When Opryland closed its theme park, we saw how important that was.”
At-large council member Leo Waters agrees. “We don’t have enough things for the family of four to come to Nashville,” he says. But that doesn’t mean that Metro will back the park. “I think people have bought into the priorities of the Purcell administration—neighborhoods, schools and infrastructure,” he says. “It would take a 180-degree shift to get back into these kinds of projects. We might be willing to help, but not to the point where we are going to guarantee over $127 million worth of bonds.”
And if you’re looking for more signs that Thrillopolis won’t have a ticket to ride, the theme park business has a reputation for instability. There’s even a Web site (www.defunctparks.com) that tracks ailing attractions. One of those, the Jazzland amusement park in New Orleans, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after being open for only two seasons. According to a report on WDSU-Channel 6 in New Orleans, taxpayers gave $10 million to the park as a state grant while the city of New Orleans loaned $25 million. And VisionLand, in Bessemer, Ala., hasn’t fared any better. According to the Birmingham Business Journal, the park racked up $9 million in debt to vendors in only its second year. And earlier this year, the local utility company turned off electricity at the park after VisionLand failed to pay more than $275,000 in delinquent bills. Much like what is being proposed for Thrillopolis, public sector bonds backed VisionLand.
Hart dismisses the failure of the two parks, saying that they pale in comparison to what he has planned for Nashville. For one, they didn’t have water parks. “I believe that they are ill-conceived and are not in particularly good markets and don’t have anywhere near the mix of attractions in size and scale that we’re proposing for Thrillopolis,” he says.
But the track record of the theme park industry will figure into Purcell’s decision. Both Purcell and Manning cite the failed parks as a concern.
Still, there’s a chance that the Purcell administration would be open to more modest aid, such as infrastructure support or a tax-abatement plan, but it doesn’t look like Hart will get more than that.
“Everybody wants a theme park,” Manning says. “But do we want a theme park that’s paid for by public debt, and can we have one without affecting everything else we do?”
