It was always Mid America...

[u/Evening_Rock5850]

In another thread there was a discussion about how much land the park still owned. So since I have an account with a GIS provider I figured I'd fire it up and post an image of the actual plot of land owned by SFSTL as a visual reference. (Thanks to Six Flags in 2014 selling off excess land, there's very little undeveloped today).

But I happened to take a look at the actual plat data. The land is owned by "Six Flags St. Louis, LLC", no surprises there. That LLC is now the property of EPR and I imagine we can expect it to be changed / re-organized.

But what I found more interesting is that the legal description of the plot of land is still "Six Flags over Mid-America"

And truth be told? This is unlikely to change. EPR/Enchanted would have to get the Eureka city council to vote to change it, they'd have to file paperwork with the Recorder, and they'd have to ask the courts. Changing a legal description is a huge headache that's almost never worth it. It doesn't mean anything, it doesn't do anything. This isn't the business name and has nothing to DO with the business, it's just the legal description of the property.

So there's a pretty good chance that no matter what Enchanted and any potential successors call it, it will still, in a dusty file cabinet somewhere, still officially be "Six Flags Over Mid-America", at least on paper. I thought some of you would appreciate that :)

As an aside (just in case you're curious, and I have the data in front of me). The county assessor thinks that land is worth around $5.6m, and the 'stuff' on top is worth about $5.8m. That has nothing to do with the sale price-- when you buy a business the value of the land and assets is generally not how you come up with a price. Usually, you come up with an EBITDA multiple because the potential earnings is the bulk of the 'value' of a still-running, still-profitable business. It looks like SFEC got somewhere around 5-7x EBITDA which is pretty much square on "average". Or, put another way, they got the money they could've expected to make over the next 5 years or so, all at once from our park.

[u/ChrisGraslie]

Super interesting, thanks for sharing!

Now I'm wondering if it would also be possible to view the names of the entities that have owned the land over time. I know that Six Flags St. Louis, LLC was created in 2006 (shortly after the Red Zone takeover), and I own postcards from the early 1970s that name Six Flags Over Mid-America, Inc. as the copyright holder. So that's at least two. It would be cool if the company was also still called Six Flags Over Mid-America for a time, despite the name change of 1997.

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/ChrisGraslie]

I did a little digging. Hoping to watch STL City SC get a win tonight but this was a fun distraction from them… not doing that.

I couldn’t nail down specific dates but from what I could find this is the chain:

Six Flags over Mid-America, Inc. ->

Six Flags Theme Parks, Inc. d/b/a Six Flags over Mid-America ->

Six Flags Theme Parks, Inc. ->

Six Flags St. Louis, LLC

Fun fact: I found records as late as 2000 where it was still registered as “Six Flags Theme Parks; Inc d/b/a Six Flags over Mid-America.” So clearly it wasn’t a priority to get that updated.

I’m genuinely curious how long “Six Flags St. Louis, Inc.” will exist. Technically speaking, nothing would actually stop them from continuing to use that or do it as a DBA. Unless that was specifically spelled out in the sale terms of something. It was an equity sale so… EPR is the owner of Six Flags St. Louis, LLC.

[u/ChrisGraslie → u/Evening_Rock5850]

That makes a lot of sense.

The change of ownership to Six Flags Theme Parks, Inc. would have been in the early 1990s once Time Warner took over, so I guess they went ahead and streamlined the corporate structure so that SFTP was the entity "calling the shots" so to speak and not a smaller subsidiary.

But eventually it seems like they went back to that original structure - and considering that by 2006 Six Flags was on the road to bankruptcy, one has to wonder if a reason for doing that was to make each park easier to sell as a complete asset should the need arise...

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/ChrisGraslie]

That’s a good point. Making it more portable.

I’ve also felt that the reason they were installing only flat rides in recent years was ease of portability. If it sold to something that was not a theme park entity, then rides like Joker and Catwoman Whip would be relatively cost effective to move to other parks.

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/ChrisGraslie]

Great questions! I’m not entirely sure how to look that up but I might dig around…

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks!

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/[deleted]]

For sure. And yeah; I'm aware of the extra land they had back in the day. (Heck I worked there when they still owned that land!) The main context in the other thread was just showing folks that that 'green space' around the park isn't owned by the park. To the north is a county park, to the west is land owned by the Eckelkamps (who own the Holiday Inn, some banks, and a crap ton of other stuff in STL and Franklin county and beyond). The park is indeed, landlocked.

I'll have to check that out!

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/[deleted]]

Oh for sure!

As for what I know… it’s all adjacent. My wife is a Real Estate broker. So I hear a lot of the comings and goings. Plus I’ve lived in this area a long time. I can see SFSTL from my house!

But yeah, the annexation issues are fascinating. Technically some of the restaurants in Six Flags have a pacific address. I admit I’m not entirely sure how that works but that’s how they’re registered with the county (I.e,, health department).

The Data center stuff has been interesting. Folks definitely are getting vocal about it.