Front Gate Destruction/Construction

The reason? Once word, construction. You can't have construction machinery moving around on pavers. Otherwise there would be a lot of damaged pavers to replace. And since that entire paver filled are is a construction site, it makes sense to remove all of them.

And even if they plan on keeping the existing entrance, the ride would still be in front. So it would still be "guarding" the entrance gate.

I have a question regarding the keyhole elements that I have been musing on since Gatekeeper was announced. While we have only seen the rendering video, I'm wondering just how much money will be spent on these towers. I would think there will be steel reinforcement in these towers for the sake of stability which wouldn't be cheap. I'm hoping they are built with a brick exterior instead of bland gray concrete like the rendering which, again, would not be a cheap endeavor if using either of these materials.

I'm looking forward to the keyhole elements personally but I have to believe that Mr. Kinzel would not have approved the keyhole towers due to their purely cosmetic nature as the coaster could surely operate without them and would attract many riders as a simple plain coaster ala Wild Eagle.

It seems like the towers should be made of all steel. It would make the most sense, and steel is stronger than brick and cement, as they crumble in spots and get small cracks over time. A solid slab of steel that make up all four sides of the towers would seem most reasonable.

Also, the ride should at least have some sort of keyhole or near miss element to add to the ride, like how x-flight does with its "ground control" airport tower. If they somehow scrap plans to build the towers, then at least they should build another element somewhere else along the ride's course. Just my hoping :)

brick? are you kidding.... is there any material less appropriate for movement.... dont you people live in suburbia where they are using styro foam over plywood and flexible light weight stucco? the mexicans are damn good at it out here.... love from colorado

^^The coaster is a $30M investment, I'm sure they're willing to spend money on the keyhole towers. CP has roughly $10M-$15M on hand.

I just stumbled on Jeff's original post (4th one down) on pg.1 of this thread and it sounds like he's saying that the current 2nd gate turnstiles will be in the same placement area but the existing ugly outdated surrounding facade (under the LED screen) will be removed from the current ticket scanning gate with a new surrounding built around the infrastructure, the new looking grey keyhole towers and station? That's my take on it and would make sense.
The rendering photos always made it appear that the new gate was being moved about 15 feet up towards the old ticketing booths to be flush with the brick "fence" but maybe not. We'll have to wait and see...

^Yes, they are ugly and I hate those blue mustaches that it has. I don't need to be stared at by the beige and blue super Mario face while entering the park.

I know it's just a rendering, but if you look at it close enough, the turnstiles aren't directly below the towers and track, their further back, but the roof still covers them an is connected to the keyholes. That roof is quite large so my guess is if the rendering is how the final product is somewhat gonna turn out like, they could keep the original turnstiles and the towers will still be attached. I also haven't seen any pics of the footers poured near the entrance so idk how close they are.

Re-guarding TTD first post on this page.

Yes you can move around machinery on most commercial paver installations, also even if they did plan on keeping the Entrance Gates the only paver's they would have to remove are for the tower elements.

As an example I worked at a science center that was surrounding by paver's owned by the city, and I always saw the city driving heavy and regular construction equipment on them.

Me personally would like to see them go for good, and use some nice decorative stamp and/or color concrete designs. For me walking on them constantly puts more wear and tear on my news and pushing a stroller or pulling a wagon on some of the paver's is a mini ride sometimes.

From when GK was announced, I always hear they were tearing down both entrances and building a new one in between the old ones.

The towers will not be made of concrete. The regular supports and track will be assembled first, then the towers built around them. They will most likely be made with metal framing, then layer of plywood, and covered with silver tone fiberglass as the finished surface.

KHTOExtreme said:
Yes you can move around machinery on most commercial paver installations, also even if they did plan on keeping the Entrance Gates the only paver's they would have to remove are for the tower elements.

Sure, you can move certain machinery on them without directly damaging them. But if you're going to have metal track excavators on them, then there's bound to be damage. Then you either replace them, or leave them be....which looks unprofessional. Bryan has said in the past that they don't allow vehicles on the pavers inside the park during the offseason to prevent creating low spots. If they don't allow regular vehicles to do that, why would they let a multiton excavator with steel tracks roll around a large area of them?

And that entire area (from ticket booths to turnstiles) had excavators crawling around, digging footers (which have huge bases) and tearing out the ticket booths. Looking at the big picture, the tower elements aren't the only things that the pavers would have had to be removed for. So it makes sense to take them all out, place them somewhere safe, rebuild the entire area and then put them back in......does it not? :)

If you have heavy track machinery going to over the surface you can always protect the area underneath with buffer material.

Maverick00 said:
From when GK was announced, I always hear they were tearing down both entrances and building a new one in between the old ones.

And if you look at the rendering photos, it also confirms that. ( I know, don't rely on the renderings) but...The new keyhole tower entrance shown back in August definitely was 15 feet up further than where that ticket scanning gate is now. Maybe plans changed, we'll have to see....

KHTPExtreme, I think you're missing the point. Sure that could be done, but obviously they have a reason for removing them all, or else they wouldn't have.

It's the simple fact that a lot of work has to be done to that entire area and having to work around the pavers seems like a huge hindrance. Just look over these photos and tell me they were easily avoidable.

http://pointbuzz.com/Photos/Photo.aspx?id=8426
http://pointbuzz.com/Photos/Photo.aspx?id=8428
http://pointbuzz.com/Photos/Photo.aspx?id=8429
http://pointbuzz.com/Photos/Photo.aspx?id=8430

They were easily avoidable. :) Setting jokes aside, I think the turnstiles will be moved up to the towers.

If that were true, the existing Main Gate would have been gone by now...

^ I don't think there's any real rush to be working on more than they have to with the gate, until the coaster itself reaches that area. They'll get to it when they get to it, especially if the winter stays this mild.

That being said, this is probably wishful thinking, but it'd be awfully nice to see the gate towers get an LED treatment like Giant Wheel or like something you'd see in Times Square, as well as a big Cedar Point logo sign across the roof of the gate. Something even more landmarkish.

They do have all offseason to work, though.