Great America was the Bay Area’s Disneyland. Now it’s a victim of Silicon Valley tech boom

When Nice America amusement park in Santa Clara opened in 1976, it shortly grew to become the Bay Space’s model of Disneyland.

It was by no means as standard or iconic as Walt Disney’s Anaheim landmark, however Nice America shortly grew to become the go-to theme park for households and vacationers — and a welcome diversion in a quiet Silicon Valley suburbia that locals say is low on thrills.

However Nice America is now poised to shut in coming years as a part of an enormous actual property deal that speaks to the dramatically altering improvement patterns in California’s tech capital.

When Nice America was constructed on the quiet fringe of San Francisco Bay, the tech growth was in its early phases. Since then, large developments and housing complexes, together with the in-progress Google village in downtown San Jose, have popped up round it. Apple’s new headquarters is a number of miles away in Cupertino, and Fb is north in Menlo Park.

The Nice America location is now thought-about prime due to fast entry to mass transit strains. Though officers haven’t confirmed what the park’s 112 acres may very well be transformed into, actual property specialists speculate that because of the property’s immediacy to a number of rail strains, it may function a mix of economic, industrial and residential area amid a housing scarcity within the area.

It’s half of a bigger actual property growth. With the Bay Space Speedy Transit community lastly making its approach into San Jose by means of the Silicon Valley Extension program, denser improvement is deliberate for the once-sleepy downtown space and different locations alongside the route. Within the subsequent few years, BART, which ends in North San Jose, is anticipated to stretch into downtown and Santa Clara.

“With this web site particularly, given its dimension and proximity to transit — there’s a light-weight rail close by and heavy rail — it’s one of many largest remaining underutilized websites within the area,” mentioned Jeff Bellisario, govt director of the Bay Space Council Financial Institute. “We’re seeing an organization seizing a possibility over the long run and benefiting from Silicon Valley’s positioning with its tech hub.”

The property’s adjacency to public transportation (there’s a Valley Transportation Authority station and an Altamont Hall Categorical prepare station behind Levi’s Stadium subsequent door) has the potential to attract staff from different areas who won’t in any other case have taken jobs within the South Bay, Bellisario mentioned. He additionally wouldn’t rule out residential buildings and will see the property turn out to be a mixed-use improvement web site.

“We’re seeing individuals shifting out of metropolis areas and dense facilities and shifting towards job facilities, so the flexibility to maneuver individuals, it turns into extra engaging as firms have a look at hiring patterns,” he mentioned. “Folks could also be keen to make a 60-minute prepare experience however not a 60-minute automobile experience.”

Silicon Valley continues to see excessive demand for brand new industrial properties, in line with Silicon Valley Business Brokerage founder Mary Wadden.

“The economic market in and of itself is extraordinarily tight, so there’s an enormous demand for that. It didn’t take a downturn throughout the pandemic in any respect — it even tightened,” she mentioned.

Santa Clara County Assessor Lawrence Stone pointed to tech giants persevering with to increase their attain within the South Bay — together with Google’s downtown San Jose neighborhood and Apple’s lately leased Sunnyvale workplace campus — as indicators that firms aren’t shying away from actual property improvement throughout the pandemic.

“With Apple, Google and LinkedIn, all of those firms are shopping for or constructing, and final 12 months was a report 12 months within the historical past of excessive tech in Silicon Valley for acquisition and long-term leasing in industrial property,” Stone mentioned. “Everybody talks about COVID recession, and it’s actual, however Silicon Valley has particular resilience to make modifications in financial exercise that isn’t the case in most different locations.”

Stone doesn’t consider that parkgoers will “discover a single factor” for the higher a part of 11 years main as much as the park’s closure.

“It’s nothing just like the closure of mall-based retailers like Toys R Us and Lord & Taylor — all of them closed within the final six to eight years,” he added. “I believe that has a higher impression on the native Silicon Valley.”

Cedar Honest, the proprietor and operator of Nice America, in addition to 11 different parks, together with Knott’s Berry Farm, bought the amusement park to actual property developer Prologis for $310 million in an effort to cut back its debt. Prologis is a significant participant in industrial, logistics and manufacturing improvement.

Underneath the phrases of a rental settlement laid out with the Securities and Trade Fee, Prologis has agreed to lease the land again to Cedar Honest for the following six years, with the choice to resume the lease for 5 years. Which means the park may shut as quickly as six years from now, 11 years on the most.

“We selected Prologis as our accomplice due to their deep ties within the Bay Space and their popularity for working intently with native communities on giant developments,” mentioned Richard Zimmerman, chief govt officer of Cedar Honest, in a information launch.

The park, situated between Freeway 101 and State Route 237 close to Levi’s Stadium, opened in 1976 beneath the Marriott Corp. and has turn out to be a neighborhood landmark for thrill-seeking Bay Space residents and households seeking to spend a day within the solar. The park modified palms a number of instances over the a long time, together with the town of Santa Clara and Paramount Communications, the proprietor of Paramount Photos. Cedar Honest acquired the park in 2006 and acquired the land from Santa Clara in 2019 after leasing the property for greater than 40 years.

Though Nice America’s shuttering may very well be a decade away, the inevitable closure marks the top of an period for lovers of the park.

San Francisco resident Jordan Del Rosario, 26, has been going to Nice America since he was in sixth grade. He mentioned it was “saddening” that the park will shut.

“With the recollections of Nice America, I’ll cherish them till the very finish,” he mentioned. “I really feel that the extra tech buildings that they construct within the South Bay, the much less leisure now we have right here in NorCal. I believe it’s like a hit-or-miss, so we don’t know what the longer term holds.”

Del Rosario, who in contrast the park to Disneyland by way of its significance to Northern California, took consolation in the truth that the Bay Space nonetheless has a Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. “I’ll go along with pals and households in the event that they’re ,” he mentioned.

Joe Azar-Williams, a San Francisco resident, was one in every of tons of standing in line Wednesday ready to get into the park for a non-public work occasion.

“The South Bay is brief on issues of leisure worth and distinctive issues to do, so clearly closing the park is only one fewer factor within the South Bay to truly do,” he mentioned. “I may perceive in the event that they had been to construct some high-density residential housing right here — that could be a higher utility within the South Bay contemplating what the housing state of affairs is like right here.”

Azar-Williams moved to the Bay Space in 2020 and works as a software program engineer.

“I lived within the South Bay and I moved as a result of it was actually boring, so it type of speaks to that,” he added.

Nidhi Modh, a Livermore resident who was visiting the park together with her daughter Wednesday morning, mentioned she understands why Cedar Honest would wish to promote the property throughout a land scarcity within the Bay Space.

“I’ve blended emotions,” she mentioned. “Given what’s occurring economy-wise and what number of firms have come out and there’s a scarcity of land … I can perceive why they’d wish to shut. It’s unlucky for households to not be capable to come right here, however on the finish of the day, these are enterprise choices.”