Volume 2, No. 4. February 22, 2002
Cliff's hanger resolved
After eight years of wrangling among
themselves, and then months of bureaucratic foot dragging, Cliff's Amusement
Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is finally getting its very own wood roller
coaster, the state's first and a first of its kind for the American West. It
was a new mayor, just two weeks into his administration, who finally put the
project on the fast track, and Wednesday Mayor Martin Chavez joined park owners
Linda and Gary Hays in formally announcing the $2 million project.
The wood track on steel frame coaster by Custom Coasters International is scheduled to open June 21, 2002, just shy of the mid-point of Cliff's season. "Because of all the delays, we thought, 'Well, do we wait another year?'" said Gary Hays. But with Cliff's operating on a weekends-only schedule through the first week of June, the Hayses decided the new coaster would only miss three full weeks of the high season.
Part of the coaster's
delays came at the hands of the city's Planning Department. "The zoning was
fine, but the Planning Department felt like we needed to go through a series
of public hearings," Hays said. Then Mayor Chavez took office December 3, and
Hays managed to get a meeting with him and Planning Department officials December
14. "He looked at the project and looked at them and said, 'What's the problem?'"
Hays recalled. "They said, 'We need to go through public hearings.' He said,
'Is the zoning OK?' They said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'This is an amusement park,
this is an amusement ride. Get it done.'"
Though the ride is
not the state's first coaster—Cliff's already has a steel Galaxy coaster
installed in 1977—it is the first custom-built, large-scale ride on record
in New Mexico. This also will be CCI's first installation west of the Mississippi
River of the wood track on steel frame type coaster. Yet to be named, the coaster
will wind through the park's Kiddie Land and pass over a couple of buildings
and walkways. A unique pretzel design near the end of the ride will have the
train passing into a 100-foot-long (30 meters) underground tunnel. "One of the
neat things about CCI is they have the ability to build over and around and
above things with wood coasters," Hays said.
The new coaster signals
the Hays' decision to stay put on their current 15-acre site. Over the past
few years they had been in discussions with the city fairgrounds and nearby
Native American reservations about relocating the park. "We kept putting off
and putting off making a decision on the coaster thinking something was going
to happen," Gary Hays said. "We decided we couldn't wait anymore." On the other
hand, Hays expects the coaster to spark renewed interest in landowners who may
re-initiate relocation talks.
"From that standpoint, this type of coaster is moveable," Hays said. "That would be one heck of a job, but when you consider it in the cost of building a new park, it's doable."