By Jonathan - August 27th, 2013, 4:33 pm
- August 27th, 2013, 4:33 pm
#51792
I'm still extremely skeptical of the parking lot being completely moved. In addition to the enormous and unnecessary expense of doing that, there would then be an absolutely massive piece of land wrapping around the park being used for nothing, and while I do believe it is possible the park might expand its borders a bit in the future, I don't think it is really going to grow that much in terms of area. Just because a park has the room to grow in area does not mean that it will.
In this documentary about Gatekeeper John Hildebrandt points out that removing rides isn't just about space constraints, but that every ride the park has comes with an operational and maintenance cost. Everyone always assumes Cedar Point has a major problem with land constraints, but the park may not have any interest in expanding out from its current layout even if there were no constraints. With that in mind, I suspect Carowinds will probably grow more from within using the existing footprint and the replacement of older rides, along with a bit of expansion here and there into the current parking lot, given that some of it is underutilized.
It would not surprise me if the grassy area in front of the main entrance were paved over for a parking lot (yay, more green space lost) so that the parking wraps around the entrance more and puts people closer to the gate, but I think that would be the extent of the changes. The newly acquired land is too remote I think. I don't really see what it would be used for other than some sort of hotel complex.
Pure speculation, though. We'll probably find out soon enough.
In this documentary about Gatekeeper John Hildebrandt points out that removing rides isn't just about space constraints, but that every ride the park has comes with an operational and maintenance cost. Everyone always assumes Cedar Point has a major problem with land constraints, but the park may not have any interest in expanding out from its current layout even if there were no constraints. With that in mind, I suspect Carowinds will probably grow more from within using the existing footprint and the replacement of older rides, along with a bit of expansion here and there into the current parking lot, given that some of it is underutilized.
It would not surprise me if the grassy area in front of the main entrance were paved over for a parking lot (yay, more green space lost) so that the parking wraps around the entrance more and puts people closer to the gate, but I think that would be the extent of the changes. The newly acquired land is too remote I think. I don't really see what it would be used for other than some sort of hotel complex.
Pure speculation, though. We'll probably find out soon enough.