What happened to the Merryland Amusement park located in Kansas City?

Answer 1

Merryland is a local theme/fun park that originally opened in 1955. The park was started

and managed for 33 years by Stanley Merry, a nephew of the man the park was named

after. In 1988, Stanley Merry died and left the park to his only heir, his widowed daughter-in-

law, Samantha Steinberg.

Samantha had little interest in owning, and much less in operating, an amusement

park. Her second husband, Alan, took up the responsibility for most of the day-to-day

operations. Although the couple operated the park from 1988 to 2008, Samantha's heart

was never in the business. Maintenance budgets and the total number of employees were

annually reduced to the detriment of the park's operations. They simultaneously, however,

kept annually increasing park entrance fees, "to suck every last dime we can get out of the

park," according to Samantha.

Falling revenues and a noticeable degrading of the park's facilities prompted longtime

owners Samantha and Alan Steinberg to put the park up for sale in the fall of 2006,

with an asking price of $5.8 million for the 50-acre facility. Twenty of those acres were

still in woods and fields behind the 30-acre theme park area.

Two other groups tried unsuccessfully to take over the operations and keep

Merryland going prior to the amusement park officially closing in 2009, but both found

refurbishing costs and operating costs were far more than anticipated. Rising liability insurance costs were equally challenging. In late 2007, Alan Steinberg, now 85, and

Samantha Steinberg, herself 87 years old, again had full control of the park and desire a

minimum of $2 million this time around.

"It has to be cash," Samantha stated adamantly. "This time there is no leasing or

holding the note." She did quickly add that she and her husband, however, would consider

proposals to do something else with the undeveloped land, such as building a corporate

headquarters, expanding the park, or some other kind of development opportunity.

Although Merryland only closed its doors in 2009, it has since become a target for

vandals, with more than 20 break-ins recently reported. Police arrested two men a month

ago after they found spray-painted swastikas and other graffiti on buildings. "They were

really reckless," Alan Steinberg lamented. "They turned over ticket booths, broke into the

office, and threw furniture out the windows."