Traverse City Record-Eagle

Region

February 5, 2009

6:52 p.m.: Plan for theme park falls through

By Sheri McWhirter

GRAYLING — A theme park planned for Crawford County is now off the table.

The state’s deadline for developer Patrick Crosson to pull together $161 million for an amusement park on state land near Grayling arrived Thursday. The money didn’t.

Rebecca Humphries, director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, refused a pending land sale with Crosson’s Rochester-based Axiom Entertainment, the company that pitched the 1,400-acre Main Street America park plan.

“The developer was unable to secure financing under the terms of the process set forth at the August 2008 meeting, so I am denying the land transaction,” Humphries told Michigan Natural Resources Commission members at their Thursday meeting in Lansing.

Crosson did not attend the meeting and neither he nor Susan Haddad, Axiom spokeswoman, returned calls seeking comment.

There continues to be interest in theme park development in Michigan, but investors are “understandably cautious” in this economic climate, Haddad said last week.

Crosson last week asked for another six-month extension to Thursday’s deadline, but DNR officials denied the request. The company worked for more than two and a half years to purchase the land for the park plan.

Some in the Grayling community are disappointed in the lost theme park proposal, while others are not surprised.

“I’m obviously very disappointed because I think it would have been a fantastic boost to the economy,” said Ann Stephenson, owner of Riverland Clothing and Gifts in downtown Grayling. “I’m disappointed he didn’t come up with the funding and disappointed the DNR isn’t willing to give him another six months.”

Not everyone agrees.

“I’m glad that that’s over with. I never thought it would work,” said Pete Kocefas, a Frederic business owner. “Crawford County needs something, but we didn’t need that.”

John Bebow, a Crawford County property owner who adamantly opposed the theme park proposal, agreed the county needs quality economic development of a different nature.

“People like me can oppose the theme park all we want, but it’s incumbent on us to come up with alternate ways to grow prosperity,” Bebow said. “Other rural areas are finding ways to succeed without a magic bullet.”

Plus, nothing prevents Crosson from continuing to court financiers for a theme park and if he’s successful, submit a new proposal, said Terry Wright, Grayling Township supervisor.

“If this does happen and it becomes a successful business, it’s going to mean jobs, an increase in tourism and an increase in the tax base,” he said. “If that doesn’t work out, I’m hopeful that something else may use that space.”

The available acreage is at the intersection of Interstate 75 and Four Mile Road, just south of Grayling.

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