On the earnings call it was mentioned that the company has decided to sell smaller non core parks and extra land around some parks. The extra land around Kings Dominion is already actively for sale and Six Flags expects this process to be completed in 12-18 months.
Unused Kings Dominion Land Up for Sale
- Thread starter MaxxForceFan
- Start date
I'm not going to lie, all the recent cuts to KD is making me real worried for the park's future.
Ugh. This sucks. Selling off land around parks feels like a "break glass in case of emergency" move, no?
Doesn’t feel like an emergency necessarily, more like “We’re fine with the size of the park and some extra money can’t hurt”. I don’t think it means KD won’t receive investments. It just won’t be a Kings Island or Carowinds for the new chain (which is fine)
Better than being one of the parks being sold off entirely, I guess?
In all seriousness though, KD has a fucking massive amount of land that stretches far beyond any space that the park could ever reasonably expand to. You ever ride Windseeker or the Eiffel Tower and see all those fields and forests across the railroad between the park and the campground? KD owns all that. Literally dozens if not hundreds of acres of farmland. Even if SF wanted to make KD the Cedar Point of the south, most of that land wouldn’t get touched.
With the company moving so aggressively to cut costs and build its stores of cash, selling off completely unused and realistically unusable land feels like a no-brainer. Frankly, I think it’s one of the least surprising moves SF is making right now.
Scaling back future investments would be fine if Kings Dominion served just Richmond, which I guess is a smaller market than Cincinnati or Charlotte, but the problem is, it also serves the Washington DC market, which I feel Six Flags is underserving. If Six Flags America closes, Kings Dominion becomes the closest major park to DC. Hersheypark and Busch Gardens Williamsburg are already drawing the DC market.
Found this on an old thread showing KD’s land
Ugh, would likely end up being a shipping depot for someone rather than the commercial you would want, which means fighting the truckers trying to get past park traffic.
ATM1031's map shows the current boundaries of the land owned by the park. It looks like a good portion of it is leased out for agricultural purchases.
Tax records show that the red lot on the east side was owned by the park pre-Paramount. The green lot on the south side was purchased by Paramount in 1996. There is a lot of acreage in those two lots that I don't see used anytime soon.
I haven't found any MLS listings for land in this area yet...
Tax records show that the red lot on the east side was owned by the park pre-Paramount. The green lot on the south side was purchased by Paramount in 1996. There is a lot of acreage in those two lots that I don't see used anytime soon.
I haven't found any MLS listings for land in this area yet...
I probably should update that, the Hotel plot wasn't owned by them the last time I checked.
Good catch. I was only looking at the out-parcels. The hotel/restaurant hasn't been owned by KD since 2014.
There is a rail line that cuts off the eastern parcel from the main park. Unless they were going to build a second gate, it’s functionally useless to the main park.
The green area was part of the original land bought by Taft in the early 1970's. Paramount got the land when they bought the KECO parks in late 1992.
You can see all the former roads used for the Animal Safari just south of the water park. Matter of fact, about 70% of the water park, south of Racer 75, is on Animal Safari land. The rest of the developed old safari land has FOF, Pantherian, and now Rapterra. The land in green has never been redeveloped since the Safari closed in 1993. Though, I thought KD used a couple areas for dumping broken up concrete from former attractions.
The land east of the railroad tracks, in the dark pink color, is owned by KD and the eastern border of it abuts the western side of the fairgrounds land south of Route 30.
Also, the park owns the old Waccamaw Pottery warehouses north of Route 30 (north of the Burger King and motels - you see part of it in the photo above). That where the props/decorations for Haunt and Winterfest are/were stored.
As far as land sales go, the properties closest to Route 30 has the highest potential to be sold. I would think the warehouse property would be at the top of the list, followed by the land east of the park/railroad tracks. I'm not so sure about the land south of the waterpark as it is land-locked and not easily accessed due to the railroad line.
And keep in mind that Cedar Fair had been selling off undeveloped park land over the years, including Carowinds and Canada's Wonderland.