Jan. 1—Editor's note: A few weeks ago, the Tribune provided readers with what we believe are the most important Crawford County-area stories of the year. We then asked our readers to rank the stories from No. 1 (most important) to No. 12 (least important).
Today, we present story No. 1. Nos. 12-10 ran Monday, Nos. 9-8 on Tuesday, Nos. 7-6 on Wednesday, Nos. 5-4 on Thursday and Nos. 3-2 on Friday.
Conneaut Lake Park's path to reopening in 2021 seems to have had more bumps and turns than its fabled Blue Streak roller coaster. It's the No. 1 story of the year for 2021 as chosen by readers of The Meadville Tribune.
The park reopened in July for a shortened operating season with a lot of changes, including new ownership, which unveiled a new vision for Conneaut Lake Park's future. The new ownership wants to turn it into more of an event center going forward.
In January, Trustees of Conneaut Lake Park, the nonprofit corporation that oversees park operations, sought approval from U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania for a public auction of the park property and its assets for at least $1.2 million.
Trustees had been in Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy protection since December 2014 to reorganize its debts and try to pay off secured creditors while it slowly worked to rebuild itself financially. Trustees made operational improvements to the park each year plus made quarterly payments of $30,000 to its secured creditors under its court-approved bankruptcy plan.
However, the pandemic kept the park closed for the 2020 operating season.
Without revenue from 2020, but still facing quarterly payments to secured creditors, Trustees were backed into a financial corner. It just didn't have the money to prepare the park to open for 2021.
Trustees needed a buyer through bankruptcy court or convert its bankruptcy to one of a final liquidation and potential piecemeal selloff of park assets.
Keldon Holdings LLC of Narbeth, located outside of Philadelphia, had approached Trustees in December 2020 about a purchase of the amusement park and its assets.
Trustees' auction plan filed with the court required a minimum bid of $1.2 million with Keldon Holdings LLC listed as a qualified stalking-horse bidder, which sets the minimum bid.
There were 13 potential bidders who had looked at the property during the course of the proposed sale with 10 of them going through bid procedures.
However, Keldon was the only bidder interested buying all the park's assets with its public use deed restrictions. Parts of the property have deed restrictions requiring it to be open for use by the general public.