Cash on hand is what sets Standard Amusements Inc. apart from the other vendors that want to take over the day-to-day management of county-owned Playland Park, the company”™s executive managing director said.
Standard Amusements, which is owned by hedge fund operator Standard General LP, said it would pay Westchester County
$6 million upfront and invest $25 million in the first five years of any asset management agreement. The company”™s access to immediate capital gives it an advantage, Nicholas Singer said, as some other potential operators would need to depend on outside sources.
Singer presented Standard”™s plan to several dozen residents gathered at The Rye Free Reading Room on Nov. 17. Standard is jockeying for frontrunner status with Central Amusement International LLC, a company owned by ride manufacturer Zamperla SpA, and both companies want to focus on revitalizing the amusement park area of Playland.
While Central Amusement envisions adding new marquee attractions, Singer said Standard”™s approach would be more understated. He quoted the cliché, “when you”™re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
“When you”™re a ride manufacturer, the solution is you always need more rides, new rides,” he said. “But if you”™re not kind of so narrowly looking at the world through that prism, you look at Playland and there”™s a lot of money that needs to be spent in nonride activities.”
Standard and Central had explored a joint venture, but the two sides couldn”™t come to terms on a possible collaboration.
Much of the initial investment would be aesthetic improvements and infrastructure improvements: work such as adding fresh coats of paint and fixing cracked pavement. Although security, food and marketing need to be improved, Singer said Playland would be a restoration project and would not look at dramatic changes outside of a few new attractions or updated rides.
“We don”™t believe that it should be a thrill park,” he said. “We actually don”™t think there”™s anything fundamentally wrong with Playland.”
Standard”™s presentation was the third Playland-themed meeting in Rye hosted by county Legislator Catherine Parker, a Democrat. Central presented its plan in a similar fashion last month and a meeting earlier in November ended up focusing on the broader question of whether Playland needed a private operator or just more attention from county government (it was noted that Westchester hasn”™t increased its marketing budget in decades, but still reported improved attendance and revenues for the 2014 season).
The potential vendors presenting their plans to residents may ultimately prove a futile exercise. It is the Westchester County executive, not the legislative branch, who would sign the agreement. The executive, Republican Rob Astorino, has said he will not make a decision on the future of the park until consultant Dan Biederman and his firm Biederman Redevelopment Ventures Corp. file a report analyzing park operations and recommending actions for the future. That report, which is costing Westchester $100,000, is due by the end of this month.
Astorino”™s administration solicited bids to reinvent the 80-year-old park on the Long Island Sound after years of budget deficits and what he said was declining attendance. The request for proposals was broad in its scope, a move that sought to encourage wide-ranging suggestions but which ultimately accentuated the lack of consensus between Westchester officials, residents in the area and other stakeholders. Some thought the park should shift away from being solely an amusement park; others believed the amusements should be the focus.
Beating out Standard and Central for the job was nonprofit Sustainable Playland Inc., which backed out of the deal earlier this year after heated legislative scrutiny and community backlash to aspects of the group”™s plan including an 82,500-square-foot field house. The group later blamed the collapse of the deal on the conflicting goals of county officials and a turf dispute between Westchester and the city of Rye. Rye, where Playland is located, wants zoning authority over any potential work at Playland, which has traditionally bypassed local approvals and instead gone through county approval processes.
Kim Morque, Sustainable”™s president, said at the second of Parker”™s Playland meetings that the county should start the process anew so that the county finds common ground and gives more specific direction as to what it wants on the property. “The process lacked a lot of clarity,” he said. “There wasn”™t a consensus from the get-go.”
Parker said that in the future there should be a local Playland advisory group representing neighborhood interests as well as a county Playland advisory group that represented citizen input from those not in the immediate vicinity of the park. To whom the groups would answer or report was a question in itself, reflecting the uncertain future of Playland.
“What that (future) is today is still a good question,” Parker said.
