GILROY
–– One week after spring officially began, one of South Valley’s
most pleasurable places to experience the sights, the sounds and
the smells of the vernal equinox is set to open.
Bonfante Gardens theme park will open its gates for its fourth,
and potentially most important season, Saturday at 10 a.m.
GILROY –– One week after spring officially began, one of South Valley’s most pleasurable places to experience the sights, the sounds and the smells of the vernal equinox is set to open.
Bonfante Gardens theme park will open its gates for its fourth, and potentially most important season, Saturday at 10 a.m.
The opening begins an eight-month run that officials from the horticultural amusement park are projecting to be its most profitable ever.
Last year, under the direction of Paramount Parks, the financially-troubled park turned its first profit. This season, the park expects to improve attendance and revenue, and start making good on the $70 million of debt it still owes bondholders and other creditors.
“This is a two-phase recovery. Last year, our goal was to break even,” Bonfante Gardens board president Bob Kraemer said. “This year, the goal goes beyond that.”
Kraemer said profits over the next three years would go against the $14 million of debt that will remain if a mega real estate deal between the park and a neighboring residential development go through.
Once the debt is clear, the nonprofit theme park could begin its long-term goals of expansion and charitable giving.
“Those are goals that are conceivable in the next two or three years,” Kraemer said.
Starting Saturday, the more immediate goal of the park will be to bring people through its Hecker Pass gates. A combination of new attractions and past marketing successes will be used to accomplish that goal.
As it did last year, Paramount Parks in recent weeks has piggybacked its marketing campaign for Santa Clara-based Great America theme park with Bonfante Gardens. For $75, patrons can buy a season pass to Bonfante Gardens, Great America and Paramount’s newest venue Crocodile Dundee’s Boomerang Bay – a new Australian-themed water park inside the Great America park opening May 8.
Patrons interested in a season pass just to the Gilroy park can pay $60 for unlimited entry. If four or more season passes are purchased, prices are reduced $5 for each pass.
Last year, the multi-park pass could only be purchased at Great America. However, this year, Paramount Parks has arranged it so patrons can buy those passes at either Great America or Bonfante Gardens.
“People wanted that convenience so that’s what we’re offering,” Paramount Parks spokeswoman Nicole Koebrich said.
The multi-park strategy, and radio and TV ads geared toward families and children within a 200-mile radius of Great America, paid off well last year. Although Paramount Parks and Bonfante Gardens does not release sales or attendance figures, officials claim they turned a profit in large part due to the increased scope of advertising.
“That’s our plan for this year, too,” Koebrich said. “Families and kids and garden lovers, that is who the park appeals to the most, so we’re focused on continuing to grow that audience.”
Perhaps the newest, most high-profile way Bonfante Gardens will meet that demographic’s interests is with its new Wild Bird Adventure.
The Wild Bird Adventure is a 1,500-square-foot aviary where guests can interact with live birds. Cockatiels, grass parakeets, rosellas and zebra finches will fly overhead, land on branches and eat straight from the hands of patrons with seed sticks. Experts in the aviary field, from veterinarians to docents, will be on hand to talk about bird behavior and bird habitat.
The attraction will open April 3.
On Saturday, however, Bonfante Gardens will offer its usual 19 rides, 21 attractions, theme gardens and food concessions. Among the most popular attractions are:
 – A monorail ride through a greenhouse
– Quicksilver Express mine coaster
– A rock maze that changes every day
– A boat ride through gardens of annual color
– An antique car ride
– An antique carousel ride
While the hopes for Bonfante Gardens 2004 season are big, so are the stakes.
An April 25 deadline for a do-or-die real estate deal hangs in the balance at neighboring Eagle Ridge. To reduce its $70 million debt to $14 million, Bonfante Gardens is trying to sell 33 acres of mostly unused park land to Shapell Industries, the developer of Eagle Ridge.
On April 25, members of the Eagle Ridge homeowners association will vote to approve or reject the deal. If the deal falls through, the park’s creditors may decide to foreclose on the park.
It’s unclear what creditors would do at that point. One alternative is for the park to continue operating, but under the ownership of its lenders. The other alternative is for lenders to shut down the park and begin selling off assets or developing the land for some other purpose.
If the park is shut down, Kraemer said it would redeem season and VIP passes.
“We are confident we’ll have a good and full year,” the second-year board president said.
Kraemer said officials worried the park would be shut down last year before season’s end. So, they created a reserve account specifically for redeemed tickets.
This year, the board was confident enough to refrain from setting up such an account.
“I believe we’re honorable,” Kraemer said. “We will redeem tickets if that’s what it comes to, but we’re confident it won’t come to that.”
