Today, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is in New York to talk with Six Flags President Mark Shapiro about the future of the amusement park.
The former Jazzland was acquired by Six Flags in 2002 and operated as Six Flags New Orleans for three seasons before closing.
There's zilch chance that the park will reopen; the talks appear to be focused instead on some sort of financial settlement that would allow the city to bring in another developer to do something with the property. (The city owns the property and Six Flags has a long-term lease.)
Update: No deal. So New Orleans is going to sue Six Flags.
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I don't blame the city for wanting Six Flags to reopen SFNO, but SF has enough trouble operating the parks they do have opened, so I don't blame them for stalling either. If I were New Orleans, I wouldn't waste a lot of time in court. I would terminate the lease and start looking around for other suitable options to get the park reopened. Go for ownership of the assets (if they are worth anything) currently in the park as part of a "payment", and use them as a morsel to entice another company to reopen.
Talk to the guys behind Freestyle. If the Myrtle Beach venture is a success, then the former Jazzland could be the next project, and it too could be had for dirt cheap. New Orleans is a funky kind of city that Jazzland could derive much influence from....even more than it had before.
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/six_flags_nagin_administration.html
There are links to Google Earth photos in the comments below the story. If anyone thinks all they need is a little oil and bolt tightening to get it working again, look at those photos.
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