Six Flags to close another park, months after announcing closure of Maryland attraction

Six Flags plans to shut down one of its West Coast parks before its lease ends in three years, the latest site of the entertainment group to meet an ultimate demise.

Six Flags California’s Great America is expected to close its doors for the last time at the end of the 2027 season.

The park’s fate was revealed after a recent investors’ meeting.

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“Unless we decide to extend, and exercise one of our options to extend that lease, that park’s last year without that extension would be after the ‘27 season,” CFO Brian Witherow said, according to PEOPLE.

Witherow described the Santa Clara park and the soon-to-close Six Flags America in Maryland as “very low on the ranking of margins,” the outlet reported.

The nearly 50-year-old amusement park opened as Marriott’s Great Adventure in 1976 and has operated under several ownerships, including Paramount and Cedar Fair, the latter merged with Six Flags in 2024.

The Santa Clara attraction sat on public land before Cedar Fair purchased the 112-acre estate in 2019.

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Cedar Fair sold the site to real estate firm Prologis in 2022.

The San Francisco-based investment group purchased the land for $310 million with an agreement for the park to remain at the site until the lease ran out at the end of June 2028, with the possibility of a five-year extension, the outlet reported.

At the time of the sale, Cedar Fair had announced its intentions to shut down the park at the end of the lease.

“We chose Prologis as our partner because of their deep ties in the Bay Area and their reputation for working closely with local communities on large developments,” the company said in the June 2022 press release.

The property sits just north of US 101 in Santa Clara and shares a parking lot with the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium.

Prologis has begun to explore future possibilities for the site, but hasn’t made any public announcement.

“We’re focused on identifying and partnering with planning and design experts to help us create a master plan for the property, working with the city and community along the way,” the company told the Los Angeles Times in January.

Six Flags and Cedar Fair officially merged in July 2024 to create the “largest” amusement park operator in North America with a combined portfolio of 42 parks across the US, Canada and Mexico.

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The agreement allowed Six Flags to keep its name, but would be headed by several Cedar Fair executives plus two executives from Six Flags.

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The newly merged executive board announced in May plans to shut down Six Flags America in Bowie, Maryland at the end of the 2025 season.

“As part of our comprehensive review of our park portfolio, we have determined that Six Flags America and Hurricane Harbor are not a strategic fit with the company’s long-term growth plan,” CEO Richard A. Zimmerman said.

The 500-acre plot, located 23 miles east of Washington, DC, will be sold as a redevelopment opportunity as part of the company’s “long-term growth plan.”