It’s Happy Trails to Plan to Build A Roy Rogers Park in Murrieta

A Roy Rogers theme park plan for Murrieta has quietly ridden off into the sunset.

In its place, a different developer’s more modest plan for an entertainment complex that still includes a 6,500-seat arena, hotel and retail stores is being considered.

Murrieta, in Riverside County, last year formed a financing authority to sell about $100 million in bonds for a park based partly on the legacy of Rogers, the late TV and film cowboy. Bond investors never warmed to the proposal and some city councilmen tried to kill the project in May.

The delay and questions about the project’s financial feasibility finally took their toll. The local Domenigoni family, owner of the underlying land, has decided instead to work with a new developer, Las Vegas-based Tri Star Development, on a different entertainment complex.

“They’ll be presenting that in September” to the City Council because the group is talking about seeking $55 million in bonds from the city, secured by project revenue, said Steve Mandoki, Murrieta’s city manager. An additional $100 million in private funding is being discussed for the project.

The proposed complex, with an arena for sporting events and concerts, retains some of the elements of the previous plan. But as for anything tied to Rogers and his wife, Dale Evans, “That project is no longer in existence” in Murrieta, Mandoki said.

Zev Buffman, a veteran theater impresario and cofounder of the Miami Heat pro basketball team, promoted the idea of a Roy Rogers theme park in Murrieta and elsewhere for several years. Buffman’s option to buy the Domenigoni property recently expired and he isn’t involved in the new plan by Tri Star.

City officials have said the 64-acre site remains attractive for development because it’s bordered by two freeways.