A Theme Park for Arizona

Back when TVs came only in black-and-white and huge tailfins were hip for the family car, some crazy guy bought some land in Florida. Wait - let's not mince words. It was a swamp. He drained it and turned it into the Happiest Place on Earth.

Today, we know that kook as the late Walt Disney. Well, kook no longer. I need not outline the empire he created.

And some investors think they can do the same in Eloy, Arizona, of all places. Eloy isn't quite a swamp, but it's hardly Big Sur.

Anyway, the investors want to call it Decades, and its theme would be rock & roll (not terribly original, that). This cabal of developers is a bit nervous about revealing its identity. Its public relations team and lobbyists, however, aren't so shy that they won't ask for huge tax breaks. According to The Arizona Republic, the project would:

"• Have the authority to impose its own retail tax.
• Be able to issue up to $750 million in bonds.
• Pay no income tax.
• Pay no property tax."

But let's tackle the real question: Will a theme park plunked between Tucson and Phoenix succeed?

1. Summer Heat - The place is going to be a ghost town in the summer, if it's open at all. Some backers fairly point out that in the Midwest, some places make money being open just four months a year. Fair enough. They, however, aren't quite stuck in the middle of nowhere. Summer in Eloy also means monsoon storms: big, windy, dusty electrical storms that will sweep in just about every afternoon. The winters will be awfully nice, but there's another problem. See the next entry.

2. The Competition - People go to theme parks 'cause their kiddies want to. This is Walt Disney Co.'s strength. It ain't just a theme park - it's well-known characters that span generations, new-fangled movie heroes like Buzz Lightyear and rides that get turned into movies of their own (Arr, Cap'n Jack!). Rides themed after Alice Cooper will not have the same cache with the kiddies. People spend days at Disney parks and the similar structures that spring up around them. I predict very little tourism for this, and most of the visitors will be locals - and the novelty will wear thin in a hurry. As will the gas costs, which will probably hit harder than the park tickets!

3. Taxpayer Support - Really, if this idea is such a sure money maker, why the need for the handouts? Shouldn't investors be beating the door down?

4. The Concept - So tepid, so lukewarm, so unoriginal. Rock & roll? Google rock and roll theme parks - it's been done (to death). Also, music is incredibly polarizing. You can bet that some people will linger in certain spots, and beat feet through others trying to get away from the acts and styles they hate. I dare them to put in a Limp Bizkit ride - no, I double-dog-dare 'em!

5. Natural Resources - Rumor has it that, to combat the heat, most of the rides will be water-based. Where do the backers plan to get that water?

6. Legacy of Failure - The Phoenix area once had a theme park called Legend City. It wasn't very big, much less grandiose than this $800 million monster. And even then we couldn't sustain it right in the middle of the state's biggest city.

7. The Cast of Characters - Jason Rose is the mouthpiece for the project. Name one project he's touted that was genuinely in the public interest. He told the Casa Grande Dispatch "Anything we do waterwise will be good for Eloy and good for the environment." He provided no details, of course. But somehow the Dispatch staff allowed that quote (or "soundbite," as he loves to call it) without the obvious follow-up question. Anytime this guy pops up, I'm tempted to put my wallet in safe, drop it into a barrel filled with concrete and bury it at an abandoned uranium mine.

8. We've Heard it All Before - Really, I've heard variations on the phrase "most amazing projects Arizona has ever seen!" too many times to count. It seems these phrases are most often tied to short-lived debacles like the Scottsdale Galleria or Biosphere 2. We see where those wound up.

Unfortunately, our state legislature disagreed and passed the bill to form a "regional attraction district." I'm hoping Governor Napolitano shoots it out of the saddle.

If she doesn't and this thing survives its infancy, I predict it will flame out within a few years and be another sad, dusty plot of land that makes drivers gawk and say "hmm, wonder what that was?"