Apex Parks Group to Permanently Close Both Indiana Beach and Fantasy Island Amusement Parks

Sad news for the amusement park industry - Apex Parks Group has announced the permanent closure of both Indiana Beach (Monticello, Indiana) and Fantasy Island (Grand Island, New York).

News had just started to break that the amusement operator, which owns many family entertainment centers under the brands of Boomers and SpeedZone, no longer had the resources to invest in and operate the two longstanding amusement parks and now they've confirmed that the parks are indeed closed for good.

Apex did released a statement regarding the closures for both parks, using almost the same wording for both:  "Despite significant effort and a great deal of investment in infrastructure and rides, we have not seen an improvement in operating results. As such, we made the difficult decision to cease operations. This was not a decision entered into lightly. Team members are being assisted by their supervisors and the company is working to minimize impact to those affected."

It is said in several new stories that Apex tried to find a buyer for both of the parks, with no success.

Indiana Beach © Google Maps

At the same time that the parks were announced as closing, Apex is also shopping the rides from the parks to other operators.  They plan to keep some of them, but many are up for sale or being retired.  According to this post from ACE, all of the steel roller coasters at the parks are for sale, but the only wooden coaster listed is the Silver Comet from Fantasy Island.  That leaves the three wooden rides at Indiana Beach seemingly destined for destruction.

Interestingly, all four of the wooden roller coasters between the two parks were built by Custom Coasters International.

Fantasy Island © Google Maps

Indiana Beach first opened in 1926 and was a longtime family-owned favorite vacation spot for people as it sat nearly in the middle of Lake Shafer.  Scott & Carol have shared a great deal of wonderful stores about the park through the years, you can scroll through them at this link to learn much more about the park.

Fantasy Island, which was for a long time known as Martin's Fantasy Island, opened in 1961 and was also family owned park that was run privately under a handful of owners for many years.  It was just purchased by Apex near the start of the 2016 season.

The news of the parks closing has hit many fans, both inside and outside the amusement industry, as a punch in the gut.  Sadly it seems the time for possibly saving these parks is over, especially since Apex already tried to find new owners.