Freestyle Music Park opening hinges on investors

Freestyle Music Park is still working to find investors so the theme park can open this year, a park attorney said today.

The park doesn't plan to reopen this year unless new investors sign on, attorney David Slough said, adding that the park owners are working to get the park open. Many other regional theme parks opened for the season during the weekend.

Freestyle has been talking with investors since closing the park for the offseason in the fall after a disappointing debut season. Slough declined to say how close a deal with investors may be, and said these kinds of negotiations take time - especially amid today's tight credit markets.

"It is a complex transaction," Slough said. "There is a lot of due diligence, a whole lot of information they have to go through."

Freestyle has until Thursday to pay off a $570,000 debt it agreed to take over when it bought the attraction from previous owner Hard Rock Park. It also owes companies that did business with the park last year.

"They are working with all the creditors," Slough said.

Slough didn't know how long it would take to get the park ready to reopen, as the season is quickly approaching. Last year, FPI MB Entertainment got the park ready in six weeks after buying it out of bankruptcy.

The 55-acre park has been closed for less than a year, so it won't have as extensive prep work as a park that had been shuttered for years, Slough said.

"That is one good thing that would help get it open sooner," he said.

Steven Baker, president of FPI MB Entertainment, the parks’ owner, did not comment when contacted at his office today.