Ride Designers Unveil Plans for Santa Clarita Theme Park

A group of theme park ride designers announced plans Monday to build a 1,000-acre theme park with movie-based attractions in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Studio Park Hollywood, the first venture of Orlando, Fla.-based Studio Park Partners Inc., would feature rides, hotels, golf, sound stages and a rodeo arena, said Bob Winford, president of Studio Park Partners.

Winford and his partners have worked as ride designers for Universal Studios and other companies and recently teamed up with Highbury Capital Inc. of Rochester, N.Y., in an effort to raise $2.1 billion to build the attraction.

Among the top sites Studio Partners is considering is the old Whitaker Corp. explosive testing lab, five miles east of Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park, Winford said. (The partnership has no connection to Magic Mountain).

The 996-acre site has not been used for about a decade, though it was rezoned six years ago for residential use. Another company, Remediation Financial Inc., of Phoenix, is currently cleaning up the land in hopes of selling it to housing developers, said Jeff Lambert, director of planning for Santa Clarita. Studio Partners has not submitted development plans for the Whitaker site, Lambert said.

“We haven’t heard a word about this,” Lambert said.

Winford and his partners acknowledge that they have just begun hammering out the details of the proposed theme park and that the first job is finding investors.

“We think we have a good idea here,” said Winford, who cut his teeth in the theme park world designing the “Jaws” ride at Universal Studios Florida. “L.A.’s a large market and our research says there’s demand for another amusement park.”