Loop 030 printable

Volume 2, No. 7. April 12, 2002

Room with a view
The property has everything a manufacturer could want: warm weather year round, plenty of space, a good labor pool and its very own amusement park.

Hopkins Rides Inc., the former O.D. Hopkins manufacturers and now a division of Reverchon, recently moved its manufacturing and maintenance plant from Penacook, New Hampshire, to Panama City Beach, Florida. The 10-year-old, 40,000-square-foot building (12,120 square meters) sits on 8.3 acres of land in an industrial park on the north side of the city. "It's exactly what we were looking for," said Vincent Pic-Paris, president and CEO of Hopkins Rides. "It is high enough, large enough, and it will allow us to work all round the year outside to erect rides."

Welcoming its new neighbor is Miracle Strip Amusement Park, which is hoping to become a show park for both Hopkins and Reverchon products. "We really would like to have a partnership with Miracle Strip as a showcase of what we manufacture," Pic-Paris said. "We already have very close relations with Buddy (Wilkes, Miracle Strip and Shipwreck Island's general manager), and we hope Miracle Strip will work closely with us. That would allow Miracle Strip to have all our new rides."

Wilkes is all for that. "We could provide top-quality daily maintenance," he said. "We
could use our contacts on the beach to have nice accommodations available for clients coming in to view the products, and we as an amusement company would roll out the red carpet."

Already the two entities have helped each other out. Reverchon put up one of its Crazy Mouse rides at Miracle Strip until May when its owner, Amusements of America, will be able to take delivery. Wilkes put the Mouse next to his new S&S Power tower, operating it on weekends during the spring. "It gives us a strong presence along Front Beach Road," he said of the beach-paralleling main drag through the city.

Wilkes has already walked Hopkins officials through his park, picking out potential sites for rides. Pic-Paris said Hopkins is interested in running rides at Miracle Strip as a concessionaire, a relationship the company already has with some amusement parks. But, he said, "The relation we will have with Miracle Strip will be unique."