Southern Star Amusement, a Baton Rouge-based company made up of theme park veterans, outlined plans for a $50 million upgrade of the shuttered Six Flags amusement park in New Orleans East. Danny Rogers, president and CEO of Southern Star, says the plan is to create a unique mix of an amusement park with water attractions. “Look at New Orleans,” says Rogers, who spent more than 45 years working in the carnival business. “People don’t want to be standing outside in the direct sunlight in the summer, then getting on a steel roller coaster.”
Southern Star was formed in 2007 by people who worked for theme parks such as Disney, Universal Studios, Knott’s Berry Farm and Magic Mountain, with the goal of buying Six Flags New Orleans. While the company has a Baton Rouge office, the principals are spread out across the United States. Rogers says he works from his home in Mississippi; the company’s chief financial officer, Tonya Pope, is in Baton Rouge, while there are designers in California and Florida.
Six Flags has been closed since Hurricane Katrina and the park’s parent company recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Rogers says this clears the way for Southern Star to buy the park because he says the bankruptcy puts Six Flags in a default position on their lease. Rogers says it’s a misnomer that Six Flags, which opened in 2000, never made any money. He says GO Zone financing will be used to overhaul the park and the plan is to get it back in business for summer 2010. “This will create over 1,000 jobs,” he says. “This affects the entire state.”—Timothy Boone
