Lego Hopes to Build Success at Family Park : Recreation: The planned Carlsbad attraction will offer sedate, peaceful amusement.

In an age when amusement parks compete by building taller and scarier roller coasters, Lego Systems Inc. is betting that nearly 2 million visitors a year will drive to Carlsbad to peacefully meander among miniature buildings made of colorful plastic blocks.

In contrast to the death-defying plunge down Disneyland’s Splash Mountain, the water ride at the Lego Family Park will consist of drifting along a lazy river in a kiddie boat.

Sedate. Peaceful. Hardly words that usually come to mind in describing Southern California theme parks. But in Lego’s recent announcement of its decision to locate its first U.S. amusement park in San Diego County, the Danish toy maker signaled a contrarian view of what appeals to the Southland market.

Lego officials say their park will attract families with children--roughly between 2 and 13 years old--who want to be entertained but not necessarily scared out of their wits. Lego already has a strong following among young children: The Lego kits (some priced as high as $100) are the building-block equivalent of the Blaupunkt car stereo. The company estimates that its blocks are in 70% of U.S. households with children.

In choosing a former tomato and flower field 35 miles north of San Diego instead of a site in Virginia’s Prince William County, Lego faces certain risks. For instance, its target market will still be wooed aggressively by Southern California’s five other amusement parks, most of which are well-financed, savvy marketers.

Almost all of the parks in the region have in the past year improved or expanded their attractions for children. Disneyland, for example, opened Mickey’s Toontown; Six Flags Magic Mountain opened High Sierra Territory, featuring a kids store and a waterfall ride aimed at younger children, and Knott’s Berry Farm has added rides for young children to its Camp Snoopy attraction.

Lego’s budget for its 43-acre park is $100 million, roughly the same as estimates for Toontown.

Nonetheless, some industry analysts believe Lego will be a welcome addition to a market that has not had a successful entrant since the 1970s, said Steve Clark, an ex-Walt Disney Co. executive and a partner in the Tustin consulting firm of Management Resources.

“You have to be extremely unique to (woo patrons) away from the Universals and the Disneylands,” said Dennis L. Speigel, an amusement park consultant in Cincinnati.

When it opens in 1999, the Lego park will be a pastoral respite with manicured landscaping and exhibits made of millions of the company’s famous interlocking plastic blocks. The park is an offshoot of Legoland, a theme park opened outside the company’s headquarters in Billund, Denmark, in 1968.

Sights there include a statue of Hans Christian Andersen (210,000 blocks), the Statue of Liberty (1.4 million blocks) and Sitting Bull (1.2 million blocks.)

Want thrills? The closest you’ll come will be little electric cars that tykes maneuver through an obstacle course.

“It’s Barney,” explained state tourism director John Poimiroo. “It’s not Jurassic Park.”

If Lego meets its target of about 1.8 million patrons a year, the park will be the 25th-most popular amusement facility in the nation, tied with Dolly Parton-inspired Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and another Six Flags park in Eureka, Mo., according to an annual survey by the trade magazine Amusement Business. All five Southland parks are in the Top 10.

Lego expects that about 70% of the visitors to its new park will be Southern California families, with tourists accounting for the rest, said company spokesman David M. Lafrennie. By comparison, Orange County’s Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm depend on an even split of locals and tourists.

Lego executives and state officials, who actively wooed the company, say they are not worried that Carlsbad is too far from the region’s big cities to attract crowds.

They point out that some major parks are outside of big cities, such as Magic Mountain in Valencia, 35 miles north of Los Angeles.

“There is ample evidence you can be within 50 miles of the city and still be successful,” Poimiroo said.

Then there is the appeal to kids.

“When you go for a specific segment, that narrows your attendance options,” Speigel said. But Lafrennie said the millions of children who play with Lego toys are a built-in market for the park.

Although there is nothing currently in Southern California comparable to the proposed Lego park, the concept of a facility heavy on exhibits is not new.

Japanese Village and Deer Park lasted for eight years in Buena Park. It drew such heavy crowds on its opening day in 1968, owner Allen Parkinson recalled, that some visitors were trying to force-feed the animals, which had already eaten too much.

The park traded hands twice and eventually closed, a victim of shrinking attendance and a tuberculosis outbreak that wiped out half the deer herd.

One of the great things about plastic blocks is that they are immune to diseases and never take vacations. That, along with Lego’s reputation as a quality operator in Europe, prompts consultant Clark to forecast success.

“It’s a quality operation that will fit in and do fine,” he said.