State of the Park

[GASM]

Clementon seems to be in even more dire straits than usual. Currently, only 12 of their 17 rides (excluding the rotting corpse of Hellcat) are operating, and one of the ones “temporarily closed for maintenance” is King Neptune’s Revenge, their Intamin log flume that’s really the only reason to visit the park.

Ring of Fire, their Larson Super Loop, has quietly been removed. This could be related to El Diablo from SFOT being on the property, but it’s also been there for over a year.

There has been zero movement on Hellcat’s 208 ReTrak. It’s been sitting in the parking lot next to the ride for over a year now, for comparison Great White’s ReTrak showed up in March, was installed, and the ride reopened in May.

The park has always been in shambles, but this is pretty bad even by their standards. Given the current economy and the fact that this hasn’t exactly been a good year for smaller parks between FSA, Niagara, and Wild Waves, I have to wonder what Clementon’s future looks like if it has one.

 

[Zachary]

I know we're all happy that Gene Staples elected to buy some of these distressed asset parks, but there really was a reason they were distressed assets to begin with and, unfortunately, it has not felt like the Staples' have the capital and/or industry knowledge/connections required to pull these places back from the brink. Niagara is almost certainly dead. Essentially none of the promised Clementon revitalization plans have materialized. Indiana Beach is still alive, but, at least in my experience, the park is still an operational mess with some insanely aggressive anti-consumer policies that really leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Just hard to see a good strategy for turning a place like Clementon around given the current state of IB Parks. They have much bigger, higher-potential fish to fry, but it doesn't really feel like they're even managing to do that yet. Maybe the Lake Winnie operations contract will generate some capital for them to work with...?

 

[GASM]

I remember being pretty surprised that anyone was even willing to take a chance on Clementon when Gene bought and reopened it, and I really wish he had just kept his focus on IB. Unfortunately, the park just sucks. Any meaningful investment would require virtually the entire park to be replaced, and they clearly either don’t have that money or don’t care to put that money into it. It’s pretty telling that I lived 12 miles away for most of my life and probably last visited in 2008.

 

[sfgadvfan91]

I have complicated feelings on this one.

For the first third of my life, I lived within 10 minutes of the park and really enjoyed it the handful of times I went, even if limited in the late 90s and very early 2000s.

I also think the place was horrendously mismanaged in the past 30 years looking back. I feel like what they did to Jackrabbit was horrible and honestly the perfect sign for what followed.

It's an absolute tragedy what has become of this park, and I don't think there's any way to save it as is. The only reason I was relieved to hear about its purchase is because I dread the place being torn down and bulldozed for "lakefront property".

I just hope if the park does finally collapse, there's a chance to salvage some of the land for a public park around the lake.

 

[GASM]

I feel like what they did to Jackrabbit was horrible and honestly the perfect sign for what followed.

It’s unbelievable to me that they closed an 83 year old coaster, opened Hellcat two years later, and continued to allow Jack Rabbit to rot until three more years had passed. Even as a child it felt wrong seeing a decaying coaster in the very front of the park, and here we are repeating history in the back of the park.

 

[sfgadvfan91]

It’s unbelievable to me that they closed an 83 year old coaster, opened Hellcat two years later, and continued to allow Jack Rabbit to rot until three more years had passed. Even as a child it felt wrong seeing a decaying coaster in the very front of the park, and here we are repeating history in the back of the park.

They couldn't even pick a name for the ride and stick to it.

As far as Jack Rabbit goes, I can actually say I know several people who swore off the park and never went back after what they did to Jack Rabbit. Seeing it left to rot was horrible.

People talk about what happened to Kingda Ka, Jack Rabbit was the real deal of absolute disrespect.

 

[harry580]

I wonder if the park do gets redeveloped in the future, my preference is to turn it into a national park but with rides like glen echo park

 

[sfgadvfan91]

I wonder if the park do gets redeveloped in the future, my preference is to turn it into a national park but with rides like glen echo park

A state or local park, keep the Carousel and Ferris Wheel maybe? Turn the rest into a picnic/event area and public lakeside beach.

 

[GASM]

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Looking more and more like Clementon’s days are numbered…again.

 

[GASM]

Saw this on FB earlier. No clue what Mach Force is as that’s not even a ride listed on their site, but I’m guessing it’s Formula 3000 as that’s still closed for “maintenance” and not listed here. I also noticed that Thunder Drop, their Larson drop tower, is no longer listed on their site. The site ALSO lists the Grand Carousel as closed for “maintenance.”

If my count is right, this list and the two additional site advertised closures mean they have five rides operating, four of them being in the kiddie area. What the hell are you even supposed to do in a day at Clementon Park?

I have a bad feeling we’re headed for another abrupt closure, and this time I can’t see the park being saved. There’s far too much work that needs to be done to save it, and truthfully there was too much that needed to be done when it reopened five years ago.

 

[sfgadvfan91]

Yeah, I think this is it sadly.

 

[michaellynn4]

This is embarrassing to watch now. Just let it die a dignified death already.

 

[GASM]

I’ve probably looked into Clementon more in the past week or so than I have since it abruptly closed in 2019. Other findings so far:

Evidently almost the entirety of the waterpark opened late due to failing inspection, which couldn’t be less shocking. The wave pool seems to be the only thing that passed initial inspection.

They’re only open Fri-Sun. It appears that this is reduced from Wed-Sun last year.

Memberships are being sold at only $1 less per month than the gold tier of the Six Flags membership, with the same $20 initial fee. Daily admission is less than half the price of Great Adventure at $19.99, but I can’t fathom spending $19.99 to visit a park with close to zero operating attractions, let alone $124 a year.

Sadly, I simply can’t imagine a world in which this is sustainable beyond this season, if not sooner. If there’s this little to do in the park, who is staying long enough to purchase food/drinks/etc?

 

[MaxxForceFan]

More financial issues:

Bridge hits Gene Staples with $28M O'Hare office foreclosure lawsuit

Staples bought the property from Bridge using seller financing in 2023 after its previous landlord, Chicago-based Golub & Co., initially defaulted on a loan from Bridge for the property. That forced the property into Bridge’s hands, and the lender sought to recover as much of its investment as it could by offloading it to Staples.

Now, Bridge alleges a company led by Staples has also defaulted on the debt by missing loan payments beginning in February, as well as failing to pay $2.7 million in property taxes owed for the building, the lawsuit filed May 20 said.

The lender claims it is owed nearly $29 million as of May 15.

Neither Staples nor Bridge Investment Group returned requests for comment.

 

[GASM]

Went down a rabbit hole and now I have the answer to what happened to Thunder Drop…but it comes with new questions.

In May 2023, the park announced on Facebook that “Thunderbolt is coming back to Clementon Park.” This wouldn’t have been the exact former installation of their former Chance Matterhorn, as that ended up at a local scrap dealer after its removal (and I absolutely wanted to buy the sign and a car as a kid), so evidently Gene acquired one at some point around Thunder Drop’s closure and removal. The comments show this sign on the fence around Thunder Drop’s plot (which was previously home to Thunderbolt):



This now tells me what the hell this contraption in the plot was between June 2023 and February 2024:




However, it clearly isn’t complete in the 2023 image and doesn’t appear to be in the piss poor 2024 image either, and the plot was vacant again as of October 2024. Now I’m stuck wondering if this Thunderbolt ever operated at all, or if Gene bought one that was in worse shape than he thought and gave up on it (which very well could have been the case even if it did operate).

Someone on Reddit also informed me that Ring of Fire was sold to a fair circuit and that it was in bad enough shape that it had to be refurbished by said fair circuit. If the park can’t maintain a Larson Super Loop, what makes them think they could have ever maintained a Giga Loop?

 

[jscll]

This setup video is of the one from Clementon.

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[sfgadvfan91]

This is all so depressing.

 

[GASM]

I spent some time today watching 2023 and 2024 trip vlogs (which are pretty depressing) because I just had to know what the deal with this Chance Rides Thunderbolt was. Got my answer, but it’s about the least interesting one possible.

The ride never operated. As early as July 2023, they were simply using what was constructed to hang a Clementon Park banner and zero progress had been made as of September 2023. The February 2024 aerial image above appears to show that more was constructed at some point, but as of the park’s opening for the 2024 season, it was fully removed.

I guess this leads back to my assumption that it was in worse shape than Gene thought it was when he bought it. It’s a shame, it would’ve been a decent addition to the park.

 

[Zachary]

[...] it was in worse shape than Gene thought [...] when he bought it.

The story of IB Parks, summarized in a single sentence. Seems to keep happening over and over and over again.

 

[GASM]

If there’s one thing this Clementon Park rabbit hole has cemented for me, it’s that Gene has very little to zero fucking idea what he’s doing (the “very little” end of things only applying to IB). That isn’t news to any of us, of course, but I think this saga between Niagara and Clementon will put the “save this small run down park, Gene Staples” discourse to rest for some.