Cedar Fair and Sandusky New Agreement(s)

CED23 said:

2)The causeway plan is questionable & yes, exactly what you need is having pedestrians. Can't see any problems with that given the increasing stupidity & bad actors visiting the park.

From the article (emphasis mine):

Constructing a new causeway, doubling as Cedar Point’s main entranceway; This concept involves extending the Sandusky Bay Pathway onto the highway. Doing so would allow for pedestrian access on the causeway — through a dedicated, protected lane — and then into Cedar Point and its beach.

The pedestrian pathway is protected from vehicle traffic, so no reason to be worried about inattentive drivers.

djDaemon said:

Well sure, but widening road on the mainland is relatively trivial compared to the cost to widen the causeway, so no reason to think it's not in plan.

I wonder what head tax revenue will look like going forward compared to recent history, with the existence of the Gold Pass.

CED23 said:

4)Calling this a deal is kind of misnomer. Sandusky gets a ton of stuff paid for by CF/CP & they get in return naming rights that are worth almost nothing & land that they could have bought w/o all these concessions..ie... like keeping some corporate in an inconvenient area for travel & not where one would prefer to live, compared to Charlotte.

What is the city actually getting out of this deal? A new rec center, "funds to further advance economic development," and "various programming at the Sandusky State Theatre." Everything else in this deal is a win for Cedar Fair:

• A new causeway, with the welcome addition of pedestrian access, improving access to the park. Hard to overstate the value of this for the park.
• A water taxi, improving access to the park.
• A boost to city services, which helps the park, too.

The park benefits from significant infrastructure and service improvements, the city gets a rec center, some ambiguous amount of money for some ambiguous stuff, and the non-binding agreement that there will be at least one Black Shirt Higher Up in Sandusky.

This very much seems like a win-win to me.

Cedar Fair is paying for it all & could have done the causeway & other things regardless b/c they own it. In this supposed deal, Sandusky is really contributing nothing, CF is paying for their on enhancements, while raising their taxes & having to keep "corporate presence" in a dying area which is travel nightmare w/o a nearby airport.

Here's the issue w/ pedestrians..."a lot of people are morons" & there has been an increase in them lately. People walking will cause problems..ie..not staying on the path, climbing on/walking on any barrier you build to the road side or even more so to a water side barrier. How long will it be & how many morons will fall off a water side barrier into the water? Get injured & try to sue. Also, the entire concept means CP will have to patrol the area w/ security presence & clean up the mess people will cause by littering the path, the water, etc...

You realize this pathway is for human pedestrians, and not primates, right?

There are riverwalk-type pathways in pretty much every downtown that has usable waterfront, and society has yet to implode as a result. So maybe pull back a touch on the baseless hysteria. This will be fine.

Regarding financing, CF stands to benefit from nearly all the improvements, certainly all the high cost ones save perhaps the rec center, so it stands to reason that they should foot the bill. Would you rather Sandusky residents subsidize this via higher taxes? I bet they sure as hell wouldn't, rightly so.

Also, don't needlessly quote an entire, lengthy post.

^^ See? I knew that's where he was going with it.

CF is benefiting & they are paying..it's not a really a "deal" as it's being presented. Sandusky is bringing nothing to the table & getting everything. The non beneficial stuff to CP/CF & raising taxes paid, while getting nothing is another head scratch decision, like not raising prices during rampant inflation where your labor costs are exploding & will remain elevated in the future. They didn't even get moving corporate from the hole of Sandusky while paying more taxes, funding everything that helps them & stuff that doesn't(only benefits the town).

I swear you'd think Six Flags America was the theme park at the end of the causeway now with all this talk about how the alleged crowds are these days.

Also, I still don't quite get what you would rather CP/CF would do what with Sandusky being so dying and inconvenient and totally without houses on Lake Norman to offer CF executives. Would you rather they effectively wall themselves off from the Firelands riff raff and act like the city doesn't exist? Pull an Elitch Gardens and move the park wholesale to someplace convenient like Charlotte or Atlanta?

It's simple what makes sense to do & they were doing it till this bizarre capitulation & getting rolled.

Cedar Fair had moved some of corporate to Charlotte for a reason. Sandusky has no airport, HQ in Charlotte they can be in & out for visitors or themselves. There is also the fact the CEO didn't want to live in Sandusky...Let's think I need to attract new execs..you can live in Charlotte or Sandusky? Pretty easy decision for most...Charlotte a growing metropolis over a dying city in one of the poorest counties in Ohio, really only propped up by CP. Hence their incessant fretting over CF HQ the last few years moving.

Sandusky gets 4M plus from CF on head tax, gets income tax, gets taxes related to CP in hotel bed tax, etc... The few new things in town are built by CP/CF or related to them. The town has done little to nothing to keep the town up it's a pretty sketch place. They have done little or nothing to even address issues like Cleveland Rd, which is their job. It's not CF job, though foolishly they are doing it to build rec centers or other stuff that provides no monetary benefit to CP/CF in a dying town that is clearly not willing to do it themselves, despite the money they are collecting from CP/CF, by far their biggest revenue provider. Pretty horrible deal by Zimmerman capitulation to Sandusky wish list & getting essentially nothing, while paying for everything, even stuff not for CP. The new CEO at SF Spanos is making good decisions & Zimmerman is making questionable ones, the cheap gold passes(low price/high volume model), not raising prices at all in an inflationary environment, this deal in terms of how it's constructed(while addressing causeway issue was eventually needed w/o the pedestrian part)

I will watch with some interest if and when the Causeway project goes forth. Whether they expand the existing base or "breakwall", or whether they are building a completely new causeway and\or bridge.

In my 30 years at the downtown Cleveland airport there were several times that the breakwall was expanded. It is a major, multi-agency undertaking. But, once the work starts it is amazing to see modern technology and good labor at work.

Someone mentioned the potential bottle-neck of traffic exiting the widened causeway towards Cleveland Rd. Don't worry, there will be that state of the art "roundabout" or bound...

I've come to realize that some people just want things to pick apart and apply negativity to.. sheesh

I love how the Register is all like, "They told us exclusively!" Hilarious change from, "What are they hiding!"

I'm interested in the causeway project as well. Maybe another causeway will be constructed along side the existing one, then each side will serve as a dedicated direction for traffic. Similar to other major highways, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge started out as a single bridge between Annapolis and Stevensville, before becoming double bridges it is today.

I believe originally the causeway was to go all the way to 250/Perkins through Pipe Creek. I doubt that could still be done with the proximity of the residential neighborhoods.

And then the county is wanting to put a roundabout at Cedar Point Dr and Cleveland Rd (Thirsty Pony), which would make things… ummm… interesting.

Is there enough money in that for some kind of over/underpass after the ticket booths? It seems to me like the worst of the night traffic jams are because exiting cars have to stop to let the incoming ones pass. The main lot lanes could just flow out like perimeter rd does now.

Seems to me that the devil is in the details and I couldn't infer a whole lot from the Register article as to how much "teeth" this agreement has. Are the details in writing or is this a meaningless "resolution" that allows politicians to pat themselves on the back, CP to be seen as good guys giving back to the community, and not much ever comes of it? As others have pointed out, if 90% of cars are coming in on a season pass that includes parking, is there any component of that going to Sandusky? If not, then it's no wonder "Cedar Fair executives welcomed the deal" as it will barely impact them. Same with "maintaining a corporate presence" in Sandusky. Unless there's some details behind that, it could literally mean one person or one building or even a sign. With the head tax, is that based on CP admissions revenue (which they're practically giving away lately) or number of bodies coming in? Is any of this still enforced if CF sells out to another company?

I'm not an expert on the topic, but the causeway project isn't going to be cheap and the number mentioned here ($28 million) sounds low. Maybe if CP is doing it on their own though, it can be done for that amount. If they do it in the next month or two before hyper-inflation really kicks in. :-P

Does anyone have a link to the text of the agreement that was signed?

Last night appears to have been one of the best examples ever as to why a causeway expansion is necessary.

CED23 said:

It's simple what makes sense to do & they were doing it till this bizarre capitulation & getting rolled.

Cedar Fair had moved some of corporate to Charlotte for a reason. Sandusky has no airport, HQ in Charlotte they can be in & out for visitors or themselves. There is also the fact the CEO didn't want to live in Sandusky...Let's think I need to attract new execs..you can live in Charlotte or Sandusky? Pretty easy decision for most...Charlotte a growing metropolis over a dying city in one of the poorest counties in Ohio, really only propped up by CP. Hence their incessant fretting over CF HQ the last few years moving.

Sandusky gets 4M plus from CF on head tax, gets income tax, gets taxes related to CP in hotel bed tax, etc... The few new things in town are built by CP/CF or related to them. The town has done little to nothing to keep the town up it's a pretty sketch place.

I'm sorry, but there are so many untruths and half-truths in your opinions about Sandusky. Is it Charlotte? Of course not. But to call Sandusky a dying city is extremely disingenuous and absolutely untrue.

There is no airport in Sandusky - well that's true, but the regional airport in Ottawa County is only 20-25 minutes away and the international airport in Cleveland is 45 minutes away. Are the Charlotte offices right next to their airport? If not, then there is going to be a commute of at least that time and distance. The lack of an airport IN Sandusky argument is a ridiculous one.

Does Sandusky get a huge benefit from Cedar Fair? No question. Would Sandusky be anything close to what it is if Cedar Point was not a part of the city? Certainly not. But to insinuate that there is nothing else redeemable about the city or no other companies or investors willing to dump money into the city for businesses or infrastructure is completely untrue as well. There are many new things being built or things which have been built that have nothing to do with CP/CF. The city administrators have done plenty to beautify the city and improve its offerings over the past decade. Some of those things were possible due to the increased tax revenues, yes. But your blanket statement that "The town has done little to nothing to keep the town up it's a pretty sketch place." is quite incorrect.

It is not a bustling metropolis. It is a small town with a small town feel. But is is far from a dying city. It is quite the opposite.

Shades said:

I am struggling with the walkway. How many people are going to use that? From the intersection of 1st street to the toll booths it measures 1.5 miles. Are people really going to walk that far?

I get this perception, but if you think about how many miles a person is willing to walk as they do numerous laps around the park once they are inside, 1.5 miles doesn't seem all that far. Granted - most people will be walking even further than just those 1.5 miles from First Street. But on a nice weather day - I could be talked into taking a 2 mile walk to get to the park if I am already going to walk 6 or 7 miles throughout the course of the day anyway.

I assume that this will also connect to the full walking/bike path that is envisioned to stretch the full length of the area along the waterfront - a significant part of which has already been constructed through downtown Sandusky (you know - the town that refuses to do anything to improve itself and is a dying city). This side spur out to the peninsula and back will be a nice addition to that pathway.

Rusty said:
Sandusky (you know - the town that refuses to do anything to improve itself and is a dying city).

Either you’re being sarcastic or otherwise you’re extremely ignorant. I’m hoping it’s sarcasm.

Rusty, I couldn’t agree more.