Jazzland Park

12/06/2024

"Demo" update - New contractor who has the proper licenses under contract and had their demo permit approved this morning. So those nearby will probably start seeing work again. We're hopeful that this contractor is qualified, although it does appear that they are a bit inexperienced. The inexperience may simply be on running their own business (they had to file a tradename with the state same day as filing permit since contract wasn't with legal company name), where their demo skills themselves are sufficient. Regardless, their main aim based on the contract will still be to get the scrap metal out as cheaply as possible. The "demo" consists of ONLY removing scrap metal, and they will attempt to sell the Skycoaster. It is perfectly fine for refurbishment and moving elsewhere (as were a couple of the coasters the previous contractor attacked). We were taking down most of it as well, just using the bottom pole segments to support a new roof structure.

Bayou Phoenix found a demo contractor that would work for "free". Neither BP, nor the city, is paying them. In fact, contract specifically says "IT IS EXPLICITLY UNDERSTOOD AND AGREED THAT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL OWNER OWE ANY ADDITIONAL FUNDS OF ANY KIND TO CONTRACTOR BEYOND THAT WHICH IS OBTAINED FROM THE SALVAGE VALUE AND DISTRIBUTED FROM THE SALVAGE ACCOUNT." The demo contractor only gets paid for scrap metal they remove, and BP gets to share in the proceeds.

Granted, the city IS indirectly paying them since the scrap metal is their asset. So NORA may still have issue with BP keeping 10+% of it. BP gets to keep 10% of the first $375k, BP gets 30% of amounts between there and $800k, and 40% of anything above that.

And yes, this is the same demo contractor who filed for a business occupancy permit last week. Perhaps that was the business inexperience as this appears to be the first permit they've ever applied for with the City. Makes sense. Who would be easier to get to do the work for free? Someone trying to get their business off the ground, or an established contractor? Established contractor would have insisted on cash.

Bottom line, we believe, or at least strongly hope, that this contractor will remove the rides properly. No big deal for us. We even have some hope that they will look at MegaZeph and see that the cost of taking it down properly just isn't worth the little bit of scrap revenue they would get off of it.

11/27/2024

Takeaways -- Contract with unlicensed demo contractor terminated. City budget is gifting them another $5 million. So they are getting $6 million of taxpayer monies for what is now a $3 million project. Fortunately, the $5 million in the City budget goes to NORA who holds the purse strings. But can the City really afford to gift this money to a private developer? Shouldn't the private developer be using their own money???

According to the original demo contract (publicly available at permit department website), contractor and Bayou Phoenix were splitting the proceeds of selling off the scrap. NORA took issue with this, which seems to confirm that NORA was paying for the demo.

And why would the presumed next demo contractor need to apply for an occupancy license at the park's address? A demo contractor applied personally for a sole proprietorship occupancy license this morning.

11/18/2024

This is how the City ends up with another Hard Rock on their hands. The video of the short lived demo appears to show a haphazard attack, rather than an organized plan of equipment removal. We understand having multiple teams working in different areas, but this appears like a slash and burn to do as much damage as possible, as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

https://vimeo.com/1023462602

11/14/2024

So they didn't hire a qualified contractor to take down the rides.

https://www.wdsu.com/article/new-orleans-six-flags-site-demolition-halted/62907723

And the planned development has a whopping budget of $3 million. In other words, they'll pick an existing building or two, do some interior work, and call it progress.

This is NOT what the community thought they were getting.

According to the city's permitting website, demolition at the site has been halted due to the contractor hired to do the work lacking proper licensing.

11/04/2024

We know it's been a long time since our last update, but we have been busy elsewhere. All of our team members work in the industry as our "day jobs", creating attractions for theme park clients around the world. We also knew that things were in a holding pattern until the Bayou Phoenix lease gets terminated.

As far as the demo news from a few months ago, we are not concerned. We know that the city gifted them $1 million of taxpayer dollars (via American Rescue Plan Act federal monies that the City redirected). $1 million can only do so much damage to the site. If one posting of rides coming down is accurate, no biggie. We were going to take most of them down ourselves. Of course, we would have paid for it instead of the taxpayers. There's a LOT better use of those funds in the City. We believe allocating them to the site is a huge waste of funds and not what those funds were intended for.

October 25th was Bayou Phoenix's first lease milestone. They were to have a tenant. Unfortunately, the lease doesn't specify that the tenant has to be viable. The only potential tenant is the "frequent collaborator of Tyler Perry" that dreams of building a huge movie studio. Everyone that is local knows that will never happen. The "frequent collaborator" might need to update his IMDB listing as it appears he's a musician that wrote the theme song for a Tyler Perry TV show a dozen years ago and has performed for a few songs since. Tyler Perry is not involved.

As for the movie studio idea, everyone local knows. Louisiana lost the Hollywood South title to Georgia years ago. There was movie studio on Chef that shut down, another place that had tons of cars and vehicles that they leased to movies also off of Chef that moved their operations to Georgia. And the huge Deep South Studios planned by the Pitch Perfect producer for Harahan stalled. A huge studio is never going to get built. Anthony Mackie is being realistic and planning a very small studio space, because a huge studio will never be viable. That shipped sailed along with the tax credits. Not arguing if former Gov. Edwards change to the program was a good thing or a bad thing. Just stating the simple fact of what the result was.

If NORA will let the musician count, then they will probably let things float until the end of Cantrell's term and let it be the next Mayor's problem. If they don't, BP has roughly 90 days to cure the lease by finding a real tenant or lose it. We would hope that NORA wouldn't waste taxpayer money demolishing anything when there isn't a plan (BP is on record as saying that they haven't hired an architect yet) of what would go there.

Unfortunately, the current situation is what we predicted. We aren't going away. We've been around this long. We won't be posting that often, but we're here. Our finance partner is still here. And we'll be ready to move forward when the time comes.

06/03/2024

MegaZeph is on the chopping block folks. We've been saying it since they "won" the RFP. Bayou Phoenix's plan is to tear everything down. And notice that the article doesn't mention who will be paying to tear it down.

Once it comes down, then what? The soil conditions are horrible. There are plenty of photos out there of bulldozer and land moving equipment that sunk during the original construction. No legitimate hotel operator is going to pick that specific area of the site. The foundation alone would derail their plans. Think about it, what would make the park site specifically more attractive to a developer than nearby vacant land? Say you are a hotel developer interested in NOE. If it were going to cost an extra $5-10 million, or more, to build your hotel where Jocco's used to be versus on vacant land by Lowes/Target/old Plaza, what would be the attraction? WHY would you pick that site? Because there might be some baseball fields next to it someday? If that's the case, why aren't there hotels surrounding Joe Brown? Because the land is being offered cheap? Let's be honest, there's lots of cheap land available, and it's not so cheap that the added construction costs would be worth it.

The park itself is the only thing that will draw more development. Once that's gone, it will be vacant land for decades to come.

Once torn down, including the pilings, which will cost millions of dollars (taxpayer dollars), the only use it can viably be put to is baseball fields. So you will lose MegaZeph and gain a baseball field that brings in zero revenue and essentially zero jobs.

06/03/2024

05/14/2024

Has the Bayou Phoenix lease already been cancelled? With the City's financial troubles that have been in the press lately, NORA should NOT be paying for this:

https://www.noraworks.org/13-rfps/166-new-orleans-redevelopment-authority-nora-request-for-qualifications-rfq-professional-architectural-and-engineering-services-six-flags-site-assessment

"This" for those of you that don't want to click is an architectural and engineering assessment of the park property. They want to catalog what is usable and what is not, at least from their perspective.

Bayou Phoenix's $1/year lease clearly states that they accept the property in as is condition and that NORA and the City has no further financial responsibility. If BP can't afford to do this themselves, it is not a good indicator of their ability. This is also work that should have happened last October/November. Not work to be let out mere months before their first required milestone.

Bottom line is that this is either to fabricate an excuse to tear it down (at taxpayers expense) or to give BP an extension, to delay things for it to be yet another mayor's problem.

And yes, we're still here. Just waiting for the inevitable failure.

10/23/2023

We're still here, if you were wondering.

We hesitated as to what exactly to say about an event that will be happening this week. If we're honest, it may come off as sour grapes or sore loser. But considering we've been down this road several times already, and have been right every time as to the ultimate outcome, we hope you'll take it for what it is. just being honest.

Later this week Bayou Phoenix is scheduled to sign a lease for the property. There will apparently be a big splashy to-do. We only hope that the lease agreement itself has clauses that protects the city and community. Keep in mind that the Bayou Phoenix that is signing the lease is significantly different than the one that submitted to the original RFQ. Their original financing partner (the one that actually had money, that got them their 3rd place scoring, and wanted to build industrial warehouses) left a couple years ago.

Instead of NORA sticking to the requirement of Bayou Phoenix to show a financing plan (not actually financing mind you, but a viable PLAN to get it), the City chose to push to sign with an entity with no money to do the development, and who will be building nothing of their own. They want to be the landlord of city owned land, reaping any profits that they can get, and oh yeah, they want public dollars too.

For the community, we hope your expectations are realistic. Even IF Bayou Phoenix had money, the zoning and permit process to do what they have on their latest drawings would take YEARS to get approval. Their plan tears down everything, including the parking lot, most likely at taxpayers expense of at least $20 million (which would have to go before the state legislature this coming spring at the earliest), combines the two lakes (which may involve DEQ and/or EPA approval processes), and relies on finding tenants to actually build anything.

We know the residents have been promised and are expecting a water park. Bayou Phoenix has publicly stated on camera that they would need two years to put together a brochure that they could "shop around" to find a water park company willing to be a tenant. The one on the plans is about the size of Blue Bayou in Baton Rouge.

Sadly, this feels like a bad way to do nothing but waste taxpayer dollars, with the potential of destroying any future opportunity for New Orleans East to see that area developed.

Sure, this sounds like sour grapes. When the outlet mall was chosen with the first RFP, we said it would never be build. People at City Hall referred to the head of our company as "arrogant". But is there an outlet mall there now? After the second RFP, we said Mayor Landrieu's office would not find anyone. And they didn't. So now, while for the community's benefit we hope we are wrong, we do not believe anything will come out of this latest RFQ/RFP other than the benefit of a new owner of the property (NORA instead of IDB) that may actually be willing to do something once the current effort fails. Why do we think this? Simple. Their plans do not need this specific property. Their plans would cost $30+ million less to construct on the raw acreage that is available nearby. Savvy investors know this.

Until then, our posts will be few and far between. But we are still here and will remain here until we either have the property, or taxpayer dollars have been wasted destroying it.

08/16/2023

"Seeking $100M in public funding" Folks, you just can't make this stuff up.

As we said yesterday, we are still here, still funded, and most certainly NOT asking for $100M in public funding. We are also the only ones with a team experienced with this type of development, and the only ones actually planning a theme park.

A lease has already been negotiated in principle, but it’s not clear when it will be signed. NORA Executive Director Brenda Breaux said some things still need to be worked out, but “we are more than 80% there.”

08/15/2023

It is being reported that Bayou Phoenix's "master plan" has been approved by NORA, despite not having any financing. The next step is for them to negotiate a lease. For the community's sake, we hope that private financing is a required component, especially considering that they have already asked for private funds.

What does this mean for Jazzland? We still don't believe that they will ever build anything and that it is only a matter of time before we have yet another opportunity. As our team still works daily creating new attractions in the industry, we will keep doing what we're doing. We'll still be here when the time comes ...

05/18/2023

“There are developers that can do it,” Cantrell said. “The process that we put forward ended up with Bayou Phoenix being the developer that was selected. Now, whether or not they can do it? We’ll see. But that doesn’t mean a developer or another one can not fully redevelop Six Flags.”

Another one most certainly can ... Is this the beginning of the end so soon? Our finance partner is still in place, and patient. We are experienced, have an actual plan, and financially ABLE to move forward as soon as the opportunity happens.

https://www.fox8live.com/2023/05/17/mayor-cantrell-responds-councilmans-funding-request-six-flags-redevelopment/?fbclid=IwAR0bE96nZJDufhAKes_C6E_3QIODCGmvNxxBk1Ai6-HQhXNrtZKGmN-i8vg

New Orleans Mayor responds to funding request for Bayou Phoenix project, emphasizing the need for developer's financial commitments.

05/15/2023

Latest news isn't a surprise, other than the speed of it happening. Less than 2 months after getting a deal and access to $1 million of taxpayer money (that isn't being used for security), Bayou Phoenix is asking for another $10-15 million from the city. Reportedly, they will also be asking the state and feds for monies.

We've heard their argument being that "all big developments get public help" and that they supposedly have a billion dollar idea. Problem with both of those sentiments is the speed at which they are asking for money. It's not a good look at all.

We're still here and still ready to move forward with our own money. And an actual plan that we have been consistent and transparent with since the beginning.

https://www.wdsu.com/amp/article/new-orleans-six-flags-funding-request/43875673?fbclid=IwAR0MU4oXpy63WTBCOZK1HTY1cmt3Tf2RmsSjT3NCzvyrGDElUjdlBxHpT3E

Back in March, Bayou Phoenix and the city finalized a deal with the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority to re-develop the site.

03/28/2023

Last night, the remaining Bayou Phoenix team presented their plan to community residents. Hillwood, the money partner who wanted to build warehouses that essentially got BP their "win", is no longer included. Despite promises all last week of the plan to be "an amusement park and transportation hub", the newest master plan has neither. Instead, it has a small outdoor waterpark roughly the size of Baton Rouge's Blue Bayou (about half the size of our planned Baritone Beach Waterpark). That waterpark, however, is far down the line. The initial focus appears to be a movie studio complex. Who exactly is paying for all these ideas wasn't clear.

We do feel confident that we will eventually get our opportunity. Even if BP is able to move forward, at least the first 3 phases do no impact us. In the meantime, we will be focusing on the daily work we do elsewhere in the themed entertainment industry.

We all have full time jobs designing attractions for and in operations at parks around the globe. In the past year we have worked with some of the most iconic IPs in the world, and have done work for the biggest names in the industry.

We won't be posting that often for the next few months, but we, and our finance partner, remain ready to move forward when the time comes. Rest assured, just because you don't hear from us does not mean we've given up.

03/22/2023

We thought it would be a little bit longer before we had any update or news. However, it appears that NORA decided yesterday, the same day that it was determined that the recall was not an issue, to issue an RFP for security services for the former Six Flags site. Surely the timing is a coincidence. It appears that NORA and the city's taxpayers, instead of the "developer", will be providing those services. The contract will be for a one (1) year term, renewable annually for an additional year for up to five (5) years according to the RFP document.

Does that sound like the "developer" plans on doing anything anytime soon? Or that the city expects them to??

03/08/2023

We are sure everyone has heard the latest buzz. Reportedly, everyone has come to terms. The Mayor signed a cooperative endeavor agreement with NORA a couple weeks ago. Coincidence that it was the same day the recall petitions were turned in? Yesterday NORA finally accepted the IDB's bribe, um, we mean "offer" of money and title to the property, and came to terms with Bayou Phoenix, with the Mayor sweetening the pot by giving the developer $1 million of taxpayer money that the developer's cousin, Councilman Thomas, put into the city budget earmarked for the Six Flags property. We can only hope that there are LOTS of strings attached to that money.

So what does all that mean? Probably not what everyone thinks. It certainly means yet another stall. However, Bayou Phoenix still does not have a plan (and no, they are not building a water park despite 2 years worth of promises). As recently as Monday an article about a new industrial warehouse development nearby mentioned that the Bayou Phoenix "might" include the same. They may or may not still have that warehouse tenant. As that was a sophisticated tenant, they probably realized long ago that this site is too costly to develop for warehouses. That's the reason the Kiernan/Brees group walked away. And other than the $1 million gift from the city, they still do not have the necessary funds to develop the property. From our understanding, most of the negotiating for the past year has been because they didn't have the money to provide the security, hence the reason for the IDB to pay NORA around a quarter of a million dollars.

In the end, transferring title to NORA could be a good thing. They will get tired of political charades much sooner than the IDB. Seriously, City Hall has been playing charades for over a dozen years while the IDB pretended to fuss while keeping up the ruse.

When NORA is ready to move on and get a real developer, we will still be here. It may happen sooner than you think.

01/04/2023

Happy New Year! May 2023 FINALLY be the year that we can get to work!

2022 ended as we expected. No deal from the latest RFQ/RFP round. The IDB said, again, that they wanted to be rid of the property. Time will tell if they actually mean it this time.

We are still here and still ready to move forward.

10/11/2022

One year ago today, the Mayor held a press conference crowning Bayou Phoenix as the "winner" of an RFP that was never publicly published, and that no other proposals was received for.

One year later, and the site still sits. The IDB, despite a (legal) bribe attempt to pass the property off to NORA, are still the owners of the property. Despite Jeffrey Schwartz's assurance at every meeting that an agreement was "imminent", "in the next week", "having a meeting this Friday", no agreement with Bayou Phoenix has materialized. Just a bunch of nothing.

Meanwhile, we sit and wait. The residents of the surrounding community sit and wait. EVENTUALLY, we feel certain that we will have the opportunity to purchase the land.