The amusement park is a landmark in Bay Area entertainment for young and old. But he has been on borrowed time for years.
A Great America roller coaster makes its way through the sky with passengers on board June 8, 2008, in Santa Clara, California. (Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Countless Bay Area residents who grew up visiting California’s Great America theme park in Santa Clara will have just one more season to soak up their memories.
Ending years of uncertainty over when the park would close after the land it sits on was sold several years ago, the park’s ownership group, Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, announced Friday that Great America’s last day will be September 6, 2027 – Labor Day.
The park, home to popular roller coasters and rides like Flight Deck (formerly Top Gun), Gold Striker and Drop Tower (aka Drop Zone), will mark its final year of operation with a “farewell season honoring more than 50 years of iconic memories, traditions and attractions,” according to a company release.
“For more than five decades, this Santa Clara theme park has brought people together, created family traditions and served as a backdrop for unforgettable memories,” park manager Dave Vosejpka said in the release.
“I’m beyond frustrated,” Santa Clara City Council member and mayor-elect Karen Hardy said Friday afternoon in an interview. In the 1980s, Hardy said she lived close enough to the park to hear “the train whistle and bells” emanating from the park while she was at home.
“I’m a grandmother. I love taking my grandkids and my own kids there. And it’s the only big park in the South Bay and the Peninsula, that’s it. It’s the big amusement park. So of course we’re all frustrated,” Hardy said.
The park was built and opened by Marriott in 1976 as part of the country’s bicentennial celebrations, and Six Flags estimates it has welcomed “tens of millions of guests” since.
The final season will begin in March, according to the company.
“As guests gather for one final season, the park will honor his legacy and celebrate the place he held in the lives of so many guests through in-park experiences and stories shared across its digital and social channels,” the release said.
The park has been on borrowed time since 2022, when then-owner Cedar Fair sold the property to industrial real estate giant Prologis for $310 million, largely to pay off $2 billion in debt across the parent company’s portfolio.
The deal included an annual lease that would run through 2028 and included an optional five-year extension, which the amusement park company said it chose not to pursue, although it did not provide details of the decision. During a third-quarter earnings conference call on Thursday, the company said it had a net loss of $366 million on net revenue of $1.17 billion.
Cedar Fair purchased the land from the city in 2019, and company officials then touted the purchase as evidence of the company’s “long-term commitment to improving and expanding Great California America.”
The two amusement park giants Cedar Fair and Six Flags merged in 2024 to create the current company.
Last year, activist investor group JANA Partners announced that it had teamed up with NFL star Travis Kelce and two business executives to buy 9% of the company and that it planned to focus on “opportunities to increase shareholder value.”
“Because we don’t own the land anymore, we don’t have as much say, but we do have a say,” Hardy said.
Hardy said she has asked Prologis executives in the past to preserve Great America’s much newer, recently renovated water park portion, and potentially save the historic park entrance carousel. But we don’t know if all this will come true.
When the park closed its doors for the last time, Hardy said, “I’m going to need a box of Kleenex.” »
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