DEL.ICIO.USTheme park plan fails to take off
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Developers of a long-delayed amusement park, residential and retail complex in south DeKalb County can’t seem to get off their own roller coaster ride.
Top Flight Development Group was scheduled to return to bankruptcy court today — facing the kind of low point the Atlanta-based company found itself in three years ago.
Joey Ivansco/ jivansco@ajc.com
The site in Lithonia of the proposed ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ theme park in a February 2008 photo.
Top Flight Development Group
An artist’s rendering of an earlier plan for the theme park and resort.
The hearing, which has been rescheduled to later this month, comes one year after Top Flight hit what seemed to be a turning point. Company officials held a meeting with community residents on Sept. 11, 2007, to announce that their megaproject, first announced in 2005, was finally coming to fruition.
Now those plans are in question again. A construction company that helped prepare the site for the project near Lithonia says it is owed money and wants a judge to reopen a 2006 bankruptcy case against the developers.
Atlanta-based RACT Enterprises, Inc. says Top Flight owes it more than $4 million. Top Flight says RACT’s claims have no merit. Top Flight officials say the court has given both sides time to try to work out their dispute.
How different things seemed at last year’s meeting, when Top Flight announced that its money woes were over and that ground would be broken in summer ‘08 for the Grand Empire Palace and Resort.
The project, formerly known as Fun World, would be even bigger, and better, they said, with attractions based on the Seven Wonders of the World.
In addition to an indoor water and amusement park, plans call for the Grand Empire to include a 6,500-seat performing arts center, two full-service hotels, a restaurant and club district, a “high-end” retail center and luxury condos on more than 36 acres on Hillandale Drive. The price tag: more than $675 million.
But beyond some grading work, there’s little sign of real construction. The site is a red dirt wasteland covered with weeds and piles of mulch and rock. The white sign on Chupp Road, featuring a sketch of the proposed Grand Empire, began fading long ago.
David Miller, attorney for Top Flight, said the project is still viable.
“It’s still in the financing stage,” Miller said. “Everything seems to be coming together so that we can move forward with the project within the next 60 days.”
But neighbors, such as members of the adjacent First Baptist Church of Lithonia, wonder whether the Grand Empire will ever come. “It was like somebody was dreaming big,” said church secretary Linda McCullough, “but they didn’t have any money.”
The Atlanta-based developers filed for bankruptcy in 2006 after defaulting on a $6.3 million loan to buy the property.
The bankruptcy case was closed the following year, but RACT, a construction company hired to do grading, erosion control and sewer work at the site, says the developers failed to notify the bankruptcy court of more than $4 million they say they are owed.
Meanwhile, Grand Empire’s Web site, grandempireresort.com, displays lavish photos of things that don’t exist on the property. There’s a Roman-themed water park, elegant hotel rooms, a conference room filled with plush red seats, a woman in a spa being soothed by hot stones, a smiling couple with a load of shopping bags.
Also on the Web site is an invitation from the theme park’s president, Matthew White, to attend Grand Empire’s “grand opening” — to be announced, White said, in 2007.
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