Market forces, management woes point to hard road ahead for park

The Associated Press

The marketing of a financially troubled amusement park should be tied to culture, entertainment and Pennsylvania’s largest natural lake to bring visitors back, supporters say.

Conneaut Lake Park mostly has been in a financial squeeze since the early 1980s and is currently under the management of a trustee.

Its most recent management company — the Conneaut Lake Park Management Group of Youngstown — was evicted last month. The company had plans for $17 million in improvements but never secured the $600,000 line of credit that was required in its lease.

The 108-year-old park is famous for its vintage Blue Streak roller coaster, but its attractions are dwarfed by those at Kennywood Park south of Pittsburgh and Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. About 150 other Pennsylvania amusement parks have closed. Carl Severino, the assistant park manager, said the lake gives Conneaut Lake the edge over other midsized parks.

“Where else are you going to find this?” Severino said as he stood on the porch of the park’s Hotel Conneaut.

But the park only has 115 acres — about one-third the size of the parks being built today. The trustee, Meadville lawyer William Jorden, thinks he has a solution.

He wants to make Conneaut Lake Park a cultural destination and a site for jazz concerts, music festivals and lectures. He estimated the park could handle a convention of 4,000 people — nearly six times the population of the borough of Conneaut Lake.

The park worked as a cultural center long before the rides were built, Jorden said. And it survived being taken over by banks in 1929 just before the Great Depression and as creditors were closing in.

The Blue Streak and other rides would stay and maybe even a bigger ride could be added, he said. Jorden thinks the park is perfectly situated within a two hours’ drive from Erie, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

The idea is returning to the days when the park buzzed with activity. Perry Como, a native of Canonsburg in suburban Pittsburgh, got his start singing in the hotel’s Dreamland Ballroom. “There is such nostalgia with that park. Thousands of thousands of people met there, were married there and have childhood memories of that park,” said Pat Reynolds, who owns a nearby motel. The park is set to open for the summer in about two months. Its short season for tourism is considered to make it unattractive to potential larger investors. Paul Nelson, who owns the Waldameer park in Erie, said he briefly considered buying Conneaut Lake. “I looked over the whole market, and there is no market anymore,” Nelson said.

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