Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993 TAG: 9305090229
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DUMFRIES LENGTH: Medium
Lego Group, a Danish company, will choose between a peninsula near Interstate 95 and a site near Carlsbad, Calif. The company plans to announce a decision by early summer. The $100 million park would open in 1998 or 1999.
"No one site has distanced themselves from the other," said David Lafrennie, spokesman for Lego's American subsidiary, based in Enfield, Conn. "It's dead even."
The park would draw an estimated 1.8 million visitors the first year, according to the county. It would provide at least 100 full-time and 600 part-time jobs and between $1.6 million and $2 million in annual revenues to Prince William, said John R. Gessaman, director of the county economic development office.
The theme park would feature a city made of the popular Lego building blocks and a variety of educational exhibits and play areas for children. Lego would design the park for children 2 to 13 and their families.
"It's a family park. There are no thrill rides, neon, nothing like that. It's educational," Lafrennie said.
One planned attraction is Lego's version of the popular midway bumper car ride. Instead of crashing into one another, children driving motorized Lego cars will learn basic rules of the road, including stop signs and traffic signals. After the lesson, children get a Lego driver's license.
Prince William's Board of Supervisors voted last month to spend nearly $1.7 million for road and sewer projects to lure the park, and the county is asking for an additional $2.1 million in state economic development aid.
Most of the county's contribution would pay for a proposed parkway leading from U.S. 1 east to the proposed park site along the river.
If approved, the state money would be the largest outlay from Gov. Douglas Wilder's Economic Opportunity Fund.
"This is very competitive. We are doing everything we are able to do and know how to do," said Kathleen Seefelt, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.
"I think it fits well into the demographics as well as the tourism mix that's out there in the I-95 corridor. The tourism dollar is very important."
The 1,780-acre Cherry Hill peninsula juts into the Potomac near Dumfries, about 25 miles south of Washington.
About 2 million people live within an hour's drive, and about 6 million are within a two-hour drive.
A private developer, Banyan-Virginia, will donate the approximately 125 acres needed for the park, said vice president Mike Anderson. Banyan owns most of the surrounding land and would develop a mixture of residential and commercial areas around the park.
The land and the county's offer of a road are intended to offset the advantages offered by the California site, where a road network already exists.
Also, the park could stay open year-round in California, but would be limited to about 170 days in Virginia.
Lego began a search for a U.S. site in 1991. The company reviewed more than 150 applications from across the country and this spring narrowed the finalists to two.
The American park and another under construction near Windsor, England, will be modeled on Legoland, a park adjacent to Lego's headquarters in Billund, Denmark.
The Danish park includes 42 million Lego building blocks fashioned into houses, stores, animals and playgrounds. It's Denmark's most popular tourist attraction after Copenhagen.
by CNB