After a bankruptcy filing by its parent company in 2019, the Adventure Landing theme park on Jacksonville’s Westside will close June 27 and its Jacksonville Beach park could close by October.
Adventure Landing owner Hank Woodburn said June 22 the Westside property at 4645 Blanding Blvd. was bought for use by Amazon.com.
“It will be closing this Sunday,” he said.
Plans filed with the city show Amazon intends to use the site for parking for a new delivery station.
Separately, a new lease agreement was approved last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville Division, that calls for Adventure Landing to vacate the property at 1944 Beach Blvd. in Jacksonville Beach by Oct. 31.
Woodburn said that park will “probably (close), but we’re not sure yet.”
He is looking at options to move the park to another location.
Adventure Landing leases the properties for its parks but does not own them.
The operator of the Adventure Landing parks, NRP Lease Holdings LLC, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in December 2019.
Woodburn and his wife, Susan, own NRP, according to bankruptcy court filings.
The company also operates an Adventure Landing park on Florida 16 near the St. Augustine Premium Outlets mall.
Woodburn said there are no plans to close the St. Augustine facility.
“It’s doing fine,” he said.
The Jacksonville Beach park was the first Adventure Landing to open, in 1995. The Blanding park has been open since at least 1997.
NRP operates 13 parks in Florida, North Carolina, New York, Kansas, Ohio, Texas and Missouri. All of them are open and other than the Westside park, Woodburn said he expects to continue operating all of them.
Orlando-based National Retail Properties Inc. owned the properties for the parks, but it sold the Jacksonville Beach property in February for $7.87 million to JB Fair Park MF LLC, a real estate company run by investor Len Allen.
JB Fair reached a new lease agreement for the park with Adventure Landing but the lease gave the property owner the right to terminate the lease with 60 days' notice.
Court documents say JB Fair wants to develop the property but give no details.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jerry Funk approved an agreement last week that allows Adventure Landing to continue operating the Jacksonville Beach site until Oct. 31 and remove personal property from the site by Feb. 28, 2022.
“Adventure Landing, for its part, desires to operate the Beach Boulevard Property for as long as possible to generate revenues and accumulate the funds necessary to remove the waterslides, roller coasters, batting cages and other movable amenities from the premises for subsequent relocation or sale,” the court filing said.
While Woodburn said he is looking at options for other sites, he said it is not a certainty the Jacksonville Beach park will close.
The Duval County Property Appraiser assesses the almost 22.2-acre site at almost $10.1 million.
Meanwhile, Amazon has filed plans to develop off-site parking at a 6.8-acre site combining the Westside park property with property at 4818 and 4824 Wesconnett Blvd.
The developer will spend $3 million to develop the site to serve the Amazon DJX2 delivery station that operates at a nearby former Kmart at 4825 Blanding Blvd.
The parking plans indicate 340 delivery van spaces.
A building permit application shows Wilkinson Construction of Lake City as the contractor for the project to demolish the existing buildings and parking lot at 4825 Blanding Blvd. and a duplex at 4818 and 4824 Wesconnett Blvd.
BYT LLC, a subsidiary of LOTE Group LLC of Gainesville, is listed as the developer.
BYT paid $645,000 on June 1 for the almost 2.3-acre duplex and vacant commercial property along Wesconnett Boulevard.
The sale of the Adventure Landing site to BYT has not been recorded yet.
