An ostentatious plan to open a $2 billion theme park in Oklahoma grabbed headlines this month. But the announcement ought to raise more questions than hope among theme park fans.
American Heartland announced that it would build a $2 billion theme park resort near the town of Vinita, in northeast Oklahoma. American Heartland Theme Park would feature six themed lands — Great Plains, Bayou Bay, Big Timber Falls, Stony Point Harbor, Liberty Village and Electropolis — with rides and live entertainment throughout. Pasadena-based THG is working on the park’s design, along with FORREC, another experience design firm that has worked on projects for Dollywood and Universal Studios.
American Heartland is an affiliate of Branson, Mo.-based Mansion Entertainment Group, which might be best known to Californians as the sponsor of the grand finale float and show in last January’s Tournament of Roses Parade. Mansion runs a theater in Branson, about 150 miles from its proposed new park, but a $2 billion investment seems a huge stretch for an entertainment company with Mansion’s portfolio.
Looking over the concept art and plans that American Heartland released with its announcement, I am struggling to see where that kind of money would be spent, anyway. That’s more than Miral is reported to have dropped building the new SeaWorld in Abu Dhabi, a 45-acre, multi-story, indoor theme park with best-in-class media and an innovative climate control system that creates polar temperatures in the Arabian desert. The proposed 125-acre American Heartland park would be an outdoor park on farmland, much like dozens of other regional parks across the country.
Heck, two billion is about the current market capitalization for the entire Six Flags corporation. If I had that kind of money to drop and wanted to get into the theme park business, it seems that buying a chain with an established brand name and presence in major markets such as Los Angeles and Chicago would be a better choice than funding a no-name start-up far outside any established tourist destination.
As a Theme Park Insider reader commented on my website, “This would have been a farfetched storyline in ‘Ozark.’”
New theme parks typically follow strong middle class income growth, especially among a growing number of families with children. That is not what’s happening in the American economy right now, where a shrinking middle class is struggling, and a decades-long baby bust continues.
Ironically, the economy is creating new opportunities for themed entertainment, as many families no longer can afford the big Disney trip to Orlando or Anaheim. That has created demand for less expensive, regional alternatives. Universal recently announced plans to develop smaller attractions in Texas and Las Vegas, in part to reach audiences that are not coming to its parks in Florida and California. But this is not the scale that delivers a return on a $2 billion investment.
As a fan, I would love to see a big new park open anywhere in America. But as an industry observer who has seen plenty of aspiring theme park developers fail, I won’t believe that American Heartland is happening until I am riding one of its roller coasters.
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