Traverse City Record-Eagle

Archive: Friday

January 30, 2009

11:05 am: Crawford theme park likely dead

BY SHERI McWHIRTER

GRAYLING — The jig is up for a proposed theme park in Crawford County.

A Feb. 5 deadline to secure financing for a planned $161 million amusement park on state land south of Grayling is nearly here and there's no money for the venture. That means the project is dead and no more time will be spent considering the concept, state officials said.

"We've spent a lot of time and effort on the project and it doesn't appear to be a financially viable project," said Rebecca Humphries, director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. "The bottom line is, it's fish or cut bait."

Last week, developer Patrick Crosson, of Axiom Entertainment in Rochester, asked the DNR for another six-month deadline extension. That request was denied the same day in a letter from DNR Land and Facilities Chief David Freed. The matter will be closed on Feb. 5, unless Axiom obtains a last-minute, multi-million dollar loan.

Financing partners are too cautious to proceed, said Susan Haddad, Axiom spokeswoman.

"Although there is still interest in developing a theme park in Michigan, investors are obviously guarded, given the nation's economic environment," she said.

Developers tried for about two years to attract money to build a sprawling, 1,400-acre amusement park called Main Street America. They planned to erect roller coasters, a water park, the world's tallest Ferris wheel, and cart an old aircraft carrier into the northwoods as an attraction.

The plan had plenty of critics, but many in and outside the community rallied behind the idea as a way to spur economic development in the small, northern Michigan town, where hunting, fly-fishing and canoeing are the big tourist attractions.

The park would have meant hundreds of jobs, millions in payroll dollars and a sizeable chunk of state land back on the local tax rolls, supporters said.

Kay Cosgray, chairwoman of the Crawford County Economic Development Partnership, an agency that promoted the park plan, declined to comment on the denied extension until she received confirmation from the DNR and the developer. Gaila Gilliland, director of the partnership, also declined to comment.

"I'm a little disappointed the DNR wouldn't go along with an extension, considering the economy," said Jean Weaver, co-owner of North Country Corner clothing shop in downtown Grayling. "It would have boosted the economic value to our land here."

Weaver favored the theme park proposal and collected signatures on a supportive petition sent to state officials.

"I guess it's one of those things. Maybe it wasn't meant to be," she said.

Weaver had hoped park visitors would spend money on spillover items such as hotel rooms, meals at local restaurants and local shopping.

Others doubted the project's validity.

"In this economic climate, the idea of somebody getting a $161 million loan for a theme park is ludicrous. People can't get car loans, for goodness sake," said Marvin Roberson, forest ecologist with the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club and a longtime critic of the theme park proposal. "It has been preposterous to me from day one."

Ken Rush lives less than two miles from where the park was proposed at the intersection of Interstate 75 and Four Mile Road. He never thought it was a good idea, he said.

"We don't want the noise and all that comes with the park," Rush said. "But there are some around town who thought it would be great."

Not Leonard Wyatt, who lives about six miles from the proposed park site.

"It's quiet here and I was hoping to keep it that way. We're pretty content that it's not going to fly," Wyatt said.

Sign up for Breaking News e-mail alerts
E-mail: Zip Code:

Text Only