The saga of Myrtle Beach, S.C.-based Hard Rock Park grows more and more interesting by the day, and offers to the lengthening list of debtors something they could really use these days -- hope.
Hard Rock Park, the rock 'n' roll-themed amusement park that was open for just five months before owner HRP Myrtle Beach Holdings LLC closed it down and filed for Chapter 11, was as recently as one week ago left for dead. HRP Myrtle Beach had exhausted itself by first trying to restructure the debt weighing the facility down, and then unsuccessfully trying to find a buyer.
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Specifically, HRP Myrtle Beach, which spent more than $400 million getting the park up and running, sought just $35 million from anyone looking to take over the facility. Court papers have since shown HRP Myrtle Beach couldn't get any bids north of $20 million, leading the company to convert its proceedings to a Chapter 7 liquidation. Chapter 7 trustee Alfred Giuliano filed a notice with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in Wilmington on Feb. 3 indicating that HRP Myrtle Beach was set to abandon its personal property on Feb. 18.
But events took a dramatic turn Tuesday when Giuliano filed papers that revealed a $25 million offer from a group of investors identified as FPI MB Entertainment LLC.
FPI MB put out a curious release on Wednesday, identifying its members as a group of local Myrtle Beach investors, Roundbox Advisors and Freestyle Park International (a unit of Moscow's MT Development). FPI MB in the release said it wouldn't make any comments regarding the situation until the sale is approved.
But things on Wednesday were just getting warmed up. Later in the day, a South Carolina paper reported that Mark Lazarus, who reportedly owns a water park in the area, was putting a rival group together that also wanted to bid on the park.
Lazarus doesn't have much time, if the FPI MB deal is, indeed, credible. That's because FPI MB has mandated that the deal close by Feb. 20 so that it has enough time to ready Hard Rock Park for a Memorial Day weekend opening.
It's all as crazy as a Led Zeppelin drum solo. But considering where Hard Rock Park was just a week ago, mayhem is better than liquidation. - Ben Fidler
