Ther's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold...

...and she's buying a Stairway to Heaven.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting epitaph on the Hard Rock Theme Park in Myrtle Beach.

Hard Rock Park, a 140-acre theme park in Myrtle Beach, S.C., opened with great fanfare last April, hoping to lure tourists with a penchant for roller coasters and Led Zeppelin. Now, though, despite four years in development and two years in construction, the attraction is unplugging just nine months after opening.

You will recall that Arizona law makers fell for the "economic development" line and approved a similar theme park for Arizona.  There were a couple key differences that I thought were interesting.  First, the Myrtle Beach park was built with private funds.

That wasn't the plan in Arizona

With just a little help from lawmakers — tax authority over a parcel of land in Eloy and access to low-interest government bonds — the project had the potential to diversify the state's economy and provide thousands of new jobs, its creators said.

Sure, that's the ticket, we found the one project that the over-caffeinated and under-capitalized financial sector wouldn't fund in 2007, so we decided to give the builders access to tax exempt government bonds.

But here's one mistake we didn't make.

Two bondholders who asked to remain nameless said they reasoned the park could piggyback off Myrtle Beach's popularity and good climate.

Myrtle Beach?  Give me a break.  At least we had the foresight to build the park in Eloy.

It's pretty obvious that the project makes no economic sense, but it might be a good idea to repeal the autorization just in case.  After all, when a group has access to government bond money, economic considerations can take a back seat, and we don't want that statute on the the books just waiting like a little land mine. 

Comments

[Bill]

When Starbucks tightened its belt and closed thousands of stores nationwide, only one Arizona outlet was closed -- the one in Eloy. So someone thought it was a good idea to spend millions to put a theme park in a locality that can't even support a Starbucks?

[Steve Rogers]

Scarpinato at the Star had this story last week. Given all your bashing of mainstream papers, you might have at least given him a hat tip.

[Greg Here]

Greg Here: Steve, I linked to Scarpinato's article,so he got full credit. If you had read my full post you would have known that and if you had used a real email address with your comment, I would have explained that privately.

[J. Brad]

The politicians that voted for this ridiculous waste of taxpayer dollars should held accountable.

A Rock 'N Roll museum in Eloy? How stupid do you have to be to think A) this is a good idea and B)This is a good use of public money.

Lobbyists Jason Rose and Kevin Demenna are the ones that got this silly legislation passed. They should be ashamed of themselves, but I doubt they are.

[Bill]

Greg's suggestion that the bond authorization be repealed is a good one. I'd love to see a comment here from a state legislator saying that they're going to introduce a bill to that effect. Any takers?

I wonder how many other statutory land mines are out there. (Perhaps a knowledgeable staffer at the legislature should be assigned to find out.)

[Stewie]

Hmm, let's take the popularity of theme parks in Arizona (anyone been to Legend City anytime between, oh, May 15 and say Sept 15, you know, the time that school is out and families take vacations) and disconnect them from any sort of burdensome concept of an ideal location (say, near a population center). What a great idea! Either you're baking, trying to navigate thru a dust storm, or in the middle of a lightning laced downpour...or all three at once...or did I just give away what the rides were?

They actually authorized this? They must have wanted to leverage off of the raging success of Rio Nuevo.

What bucky? You say you don't know where Legend City is? That's because it ISN'T. You could visit it but it's underneath the SRP offices. And it was a decent amusement park.

Bad Idea jeans.

[Ann]

Ahhh... Legend City, what would it be without the Hubcaps playing in the backround.

They, too, were a charade.

[Jim Torgeson]

I want to build an amusement park in my backyard. Can I get bond access?

[Steve F.]

Wepage with info on Legend City:

http://www.legend-city.com/home.htm

[Steve Rogers]

Greg: I read the whole post. I didn't follow every link. You might have mentioned Daniel's name, but I suppose your standards are your standards.

[Greg Here]

Greg Here: Steve, the entire middle quote is from his article. It's offset in italics and has a link to the original source. That's a standard way to quote someone in the blogosphere.

[ron]

If this passed muster at the capital last year, then it must have been passed by the Republicans - they held the most seats.

[ron]

Hmmm, if this past the muster of the legislature last spring - it must have been passed by Republicans - they held the majority of the seats.

[ron]

I thought I would check out the Decades Music website - there is a list of supporters. Among them Jordon Rose - a name that sounded familiar.

Here is his quote from the Decades website:

“The most exciting thing in land use law is to be able to represent visionaries who think big and have the means to follow through—the Decades team of clients is exactly that—a world class group whose out of the box idea will change Arizona for the better.”

—Jordan Rose, Rose Law Group, PC

If you want to see how strong a supporter of the GOP, check this website:

http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/jordan-rose.asp?cycle=08