LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB Fox 41)---On Friday, officials with Bluegrass Boardwalk emailed the media a statement saying they had dropped their plans to reopen the former Kentucky Kingdom.
On Saturday, Bluegrass Boardwalk CEO Natalie Koch, met with media members at Holiday World to explain the decision.
"We're a family owned business here at Holiday World and Splashin' Safari and this is quite different leasing a property and working with the government than actually owning the property and working independently. We just started having concerns as the project went on, as the negotiations continued we started to have more concerns that we wouldn't necessarily be able to make quick decisions as we like to do here. For example, say we need to move a ride or just extract a ride, here we have the freedom to do that. If we're working with the government we have less freedom to do that. And for us, that just made us nervous and decided the project just wasn't for us," Natalie Koch said.
Natalie Koch says uncertainly of what may happen in the future was also a concern.
"Part of the decision too is the fact that there is uncertainty when you're working with the government and the longer that we continued with the progress of the project we realized that the same people might not be here next year, specifically Harold Workman who has been wonderful, But he is going to be leaving and we don't know who his replacement will be and that kind of uncertainty is hard for us because we plan 5 to 10 years in advance," says Natalie Koch.
She says the decision to drop plans to reopen the former Kentucky Kingdom was agreed on by all board members.
"The board was not unanimous, there were still some slight reservations but when we discussed it on Friday we decided in all fairness to the state of Kentucky it was time for us to pull the plug, let them find someone else, another operator that could get it open by 2014," says Natalie Koch.
We'll have much more on what the Koch family had to say about this decision tonight at 10:00 on WMYO.
Copyright 2012 WDRB News. All Rights Reserved.
