Future still cloudy for Wild West theme park / LJWorld.com

Business

By Bill Wilson - The Wichita Eagle

September 6, 2008

The return of the amusement park formerly known as Wild West World continues to grind forward with a meeting scheduled next week in Park City to discuss its future.

Officials from AHG, the Florida development group that bought the park out of bankruptcy in June, have a Tuesday meeting scheduled with Park City officials, City Manager Jack Whitson said.

"I really haven't heard a lot out of them," Whitson said Thursday. "I've heard they have a deal signed... and hopefully we'll get an update from them next week."

But today, after almost three months of talks, the date to start rebranding the park for next summer remains a moving target.

AHG officials and a partnership headed by Jerry Murphy, a Tulsa-based carnival entrepreneur, spent most of the late summer hashing out a lease deal - a document that reportedly exceeds more than 100 pages - for Murphy to operate the park.

Murphy, who's in New Mexico operating his traveling state fair carnival, said Thursday that he "hasn't heard a thing" about the progress of the deal.

"I don't think it's fallen apart," he said. "I would have gotten a call if it had. I'm sure the reason I haven't heard is because I'm out here on the road."

The park's theater was scheduled to reopen this fall to introduce customers to the new park.

But as of Thursday, Park City officials have no firm date for that reopening, let alone the work necessary to rebrand the park and prepare it for an influx of new rides owned by Murphy.

"A lot of it depends on the number of pad sites they're going to use," Whitson said. "Time's getting close."

As is the time for the city and county's tourism arm to begin spreading the word about the park.

Print materials touting next summer's Wichita-area attractions are going to press now, said John Rolfe, president and chief executive of the Greater Wichita Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

"The longer you have, the better you can tell people about it," Rolfe said.

"But even if we don't find out until January, there are other forms of marketing -- targeted mailings, ad placements in newspapers. We'd like to use as many forms of marketing as we can."

Wild West World founder Thomas Etheredge opened the park in May 2007. He closed it two months later and filed for bankruptcy, blaming poor attendance and the weather for its failure.

The park went through one aborted sale attempt last fall before AHG and a group headed by Murphy battled for it last spring.

AHG bought the park at bankruptcy auction for $2.1 million after Murphy's group defaulted on a $2 million deal to buy the park.