Company Wants To Bring Disney 'Dream' Park To Life In Fort Worth
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NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - Try to imagine a 5,000 acre development about the size of Texas A&M University somewhere in Fort Worth or Tarrant County; and its centerpiece is a big, man-made mountain with a snow ski run inside. Dream? Vision? Or snow job?
"Dreams can become reality with preparation and also a team that can bring those dreams to reality," according to Rick Silanskas, who says he wants to bring a life-long Disney dream park to life with a resort, golf course, and amusement rides. His company, DreamVision, even attracted a number of former Disney execs to create their own brand.
"And that's family values," Ron Logan told CBS 11 News. The DreamVision chief creative officer spent decades producing concerts and stage show for Disney. " I had a saying when I worked with Disney with everything we did. "If I didn't personally feel something in here when we were producing something, we didn't end up doing it.'"
Hotels, restaurants, theaters, amusement park rides...even an indoor ski run from the same snow engineer who created Ski Dubai in a Mideast desert mall.
Gary Slade publishes and international magazine for amusement parks. He believes DreamVision has the necessary talent in place, with a caveat. "The question now is if this team truly does, one, have the land in place for such a big endeavor, and two, if they do have the financing in place. If you have land and if you have financing, then yes, you can move forward."
The company says financing is through a private equity firm that's funding this and a companion park. But were do you find 5,000 undeveloped acres? In Tarrant County? Salinskas is not saying. "We are in development; internally. And at this point that is all that I can say is it's been chosen, but we will reveal the exact location."
How much is 5,000 acres? Roughly the same size as Lake Benbrook. Even Fort Worth's mayor claims not to know where the land is, though the city can annex another 300 square miles through extra territorial jurisdictions, or ETJs. "I know they've looked at a couple of things and Fort Worth has lot of ETJs still to be annexed so we'd be optimistic to have it here; but that's a big parcel of land, 5,000 acres."
DreamVision first came on the scene in Fort Worth in May 2013 with many of these same claims; its chair says he's spent the time since firming up his team and getting financing through a company, based in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where the other amusement park will be built.
DreamVision will hold a news conference at the site on Wednesday providing more details.
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