Somebody should tell these Canadians about Palisades Park.
I’m talking about the consortium that plans to build a giant amusement complex next to the shopping and entertainment complex planned for the former Xanadu.
Central to the scheme is the idea that the people who come to amusement areas are big spenders who drop dollars like Saudi sheiks.
The reality is quite different. They’re cheapskates.
I learned that lesson well when I worked on the Seaside boardwalk as a lad. I discovered at an early age that amusement areas don’t exactly attract the upper crust. I imagine it was the same at Palisades Park. I never visited there, but I did hear those "Come on over" commercials that played endlessly on AM radio in the summer: "Shows and dancing are free ... so’s the parking, so gee ... come on over," it went.
Whoever wrote that jingle understood the market. Amusement parks, by their very nature, require cheap land so they can offer cheap entertainment to cheapskates. But the American Dream complex would be built amid some of the most expensive and crowded real estate on the planet.
The question of how many people will show up to a high-end amusement complex is central to the brawl now going on between the Triple Five group and the two teams that run the stadium complex. At a meeting last week of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, the representatives of the Jets and Giants argued that the amusement complex could generate traffic bottlenecks lasting for hours. The people from Triple Five argued that many of their customers would come by mass transit and there would be little conflict.
I drove to the Jets game Sunday to see who’s right. Before the game, I wandered through lots filled with tens of thousands of cars, all of which must exit through a handful of chokepoints. After the game, I met with Karen Kessler, who does the PR for the teams.
As we watched the traffic jam begin to form on Route 3, Kessler noted the train stop is on the other side of the stadium from the proposed amusement area. It would be a long walk with a stroller and a couple of kids.
But if those customers come in cars, then the postgame traffic jam could stretch for hours if American Dream attracts the 100,000-plus daily visitors that are expected, she said.
"If it takes too long, then we fear there’s a higher stay-away factor for our fans," she said. "They’re just going to say it’s not worth it because it’s gridlock and I can’t get out."
The counterargument from the Triple Five officials is that American Dream would add only 63 cars to the traffic mix during the first hour after a game. Kessler termed that "absurd."
Perhaps. But maybe not. Football season doesn’t get going till after Labor Day. And those of us who worked the boards know what happens to amusement areas on Labor Day: Once schools open, the rides close.
And never mind what happens after Labor Day. Consider what might happen at the height of summer. The Triple Five people say their water parks work just fine in Minnesota and Alberta. But Minnesota and Alberta don’t have ocean beaches. Jersey does.
Would you rather spend your summer in the sun looking out at the Atlantic or under glass looking at the underside of the Route 3 bridge?
But let’s assume their consultants know more about this than I do. That could be even worse. If their crowd projections are correct, we can expect Giant-sized traffic jams on Route 3 every day of the week.
Here, we come to the real problem, one I wrote about last summer concerning the fight between Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Vince Barrella and the mega-bars in his town. Mass tourism is more of a hindrance than a help to the locals. The tax revenue goes to Trenton and the town gets all the costs.
That’s what led to the demise of Palisades Park. It didn’t close because it stopped attracting cheapskates. It closed because municipal officials got tired of all the hassles. They rezoned the land so the owner could sell it to high-rise developers.
Maybe this will all work out for American Dream. But before Triple Five goes any further with its plan, I’d offer this advice: Write that jingle first.