A 119-year-old amusement park in Clementon has closed permanently before going up for sale. Management at Clementon Park & Splash World announced the decision via social media on September 9, five years after the park was last sold.
This year’s closure is the second permanent closure in the last seven years, according to a PhillyVoice report.
Before closing in 2019, Clementon Park was among the oldest continuously operating amusement parks in the country. The park was sold in 2011 to Oklahoma-based entertainment firm Premier Parks, which closed it in 2019 and finalized the property sale in 2021.
Chicago-based IB Parks & Entertainment, the buyer, paid $2.6 million for the property in a virtual auction and reopened the amusement park in June of that year.
The auction for the property starts October 19th, with bidding opening at $1.5 million.
While the fate of the amusement park remains uncertain, the next owner of the 52-acre campus will undoubtedly analyze whether the highest possible return per square foot is in entertainment and amusement parks.
A report in Realtor.com says that while the median sale price of homes in Clementon decreased 13% year over year, the dollar-per-square-foot price of homes sold in the municipality increased 18% over the same period. Another report from Redfin says the median sale price per square foot is up 11% to $238 since last year.
A July 2021 SJ Magazine report says the amusement park’s origins date back to the 18th century, when Civil War veteran Theodore B. Gibbs built a picnic area along Clementon Lake that became a resort destination. Gibbs added other attractions over the years, and in 1907, when trolley lines from Camden were extended to the park entrance, the property officially became Clementon Lake Park.
A report in TheStreet says a fire nearly destroyed the entire park in 1931, and the park also declined when the area hosted dance performances and boxing matches from the 1940s to the 1960s.
The Gibbs family sold the park in 1977 to Miami-based nightclub operator Abram Baker.
Baker added the Splash World section in 1993 after a $5 million renovation of the entire campus. The report says he then sold the entire complex to Adrenaline Family Entertainment in 2007, and it was then sold to Premier Parks.
In 2011, Premier Parks renamed the amusement park Clementon Park and Splash World.
