GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Bay Beach Amusement Park opens for the season in a little more than three weeks, and two rides will no longer be part of the fun at the park.
FOX 11 has learned the Sea Dragon and Chairplane, or tot-swing ride, will both be permanently removed. It comes one year after two other rides were permanently removed from the park.
“So when you combine what needs to be done, in addition to the stuff that is not that far off, it just really isn’t feasible,” Green Bay Parks Director Dan Ditscheit told the city’s parks committee about the Sea Dragon’s fate during a meeting Wednesday evening.
Ditscheit says the Sea Dragon’s manufacturer recommended shutting the ride down due to rusting that would cost $300,000 to fix. Replacement parts are also scarce due to the ride’s age.
The city plans to donate the Sea Dragon to the fundraising group, Friends of Bay Beach, with hopes any sales of parts will eventually be donated back into the park.
“When we got this much cost in it, I think it’s probably the best that we hand off the problem to somebody else,” said Alderperson Steve Campbell, who represents the district where Bay Beach is.
The loss of the Sea Dragon comes on the heels of two other rides being taken out last summer: the Bay Beast and the Falling Star. Similar rides, however, are on the way to replace them.
The Friends of Bay Beach donated all three of those rides, purchasing them used. The city paid for the site work to have the rides installed.
“In the end they were still worth it,” said Ditscheit. “We definitely paid for the rides over time and it was still a benefit to get the rides there and create more of an excitement and a draw to the park…I think moving forward, we’ll just have more conversations. Do we want to purchase rides as old as what we’ve recently purchased in the last go around?”
NebulaZ is a used ride the city purchased for $775,000 using federal ARPA money. The hope is it will be ready by July.
It will go where the Chairplane or tot-swing ride was located. The decision was made this offseason to take out that ride.
“There was some steel that needed to be replaced in the frame, but more importantly, that ride just didn’t generate a lot of revenue,” said Ditscheit. “We actually lost money on that ride every year.”
A taller version of the Bay Beast ride is expected to debut at or just after the park opens for the season on May 6th.
New bumper cars will also debut when Bay Beach opens for the season. The old cars are original to when the ride was built in the 1990s.
The new cars will have a 50s theme.
“I think the public will be happy with the bumper cars when they come,” said Ditscheit.
It’s also now been five years since Green Bay’s city council agreed to borrow $5 million to bring a beach back to Bay Beach Amusement Park.
The plan has hit several roadblocks over the years, mostly due to rising costs.
The city was hopeful about starting construction last fall on a pier and boardwalk. However, three bids for the pier all came in at least $1 million over budget.
“So we’re still evaluating what our options are to redesign that to get it more within our budget,” said Ditscheit. “We’re also looking at other potential grant opportunities to help fund the cost for phase one of the project, which is the construction of the pier, the wildlife viewing platform, the shoreline walking and the stormwater management associated with that work.”
In addition to the $5 million borrowed, the city also had goals to fundraise $1 million and gather another $1 million through grants. However, both those efforts came up short.
