Members of Sustainable Playland Inc. are scheduled to meet Tuesday night and discuss whether or not to move forward with its plan to take over management of Playland park.
The meeting comes only days after Westchester County Board of Legislators Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, a Democrat, set a deadline for SPI to decide if it would cooperate with the remainder of the county”™s review process for the plan on Playland’s future. The deadline is May 1.
SPI, a Rye-based nonprofit, said earlier this month it wouldn”™t cooperate further with county lawmakers”™ review process until a jurisdictional issue was resolved between Westchester, which owns the park, and the city of Rye, where Playland is located. Rye asserted its authority over any proposed construction in the park amid pushback over SPI”™s management plan, which included the proposed building of an 82,500-square-foot athletic field house.
Geoff Thompson, a spokesman for SPI, told the Business Journal that Tuesday night”™s meeting was a regularly scheduled meeting of the group”™s board of trustees. The deadline was only one of several items he anticipated would be discussed at the meeting. It wasn’t clear if SPI would make reach a definitive decision at the meeting to meet the deadline, withdraw its proposal or take other action.
SPI formed specifically for the purposes of seeking to manage Playland, which runs in the red annually by as much as $4 million, according to the county executive”™s office. Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican who came into office in 2010, sought proposals to reimagine the park even as some critics questioned statistics that showed declining attendance and annual deficits.
Two other groups that had sought to manage the park, Central Amusements International and Standard Amusements, each have amusement park management experience, and if SPI decides to cut ties with Westchester, county lawmakers are expected to pursue a deal with one of those groups rather than seek new management proposals.
