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| Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Drive-In |
Like the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has now been expanded to provide Fort Worth with a much needed drive-in movie theater.
The Tarrant Regional Water District, it being the entity in cahoots with the TRV Boondoggle, is leasing 25 acres, give or take an acre or two, of land it owns south of LaGrave Field, to a Dallas startup business called Coyote Theaters.
Yes. That sounds like a good plan, lease land to a startup business starting up a new business they've not started up before. Sounds like a recipe for success. Sort of like building the world's premiere wakeboard park where it can get wiped out by a flood.
Tarrant Regional Water District board member, Jim Lane, is totally on board, thinking this is a great idea. Mr. Lane plans on borrowing a neighbor's 1957 Chevy to take his wife to the drive-in. I assume to recreate the wild drive-in nights of his youth.
I've been there, done that. My drive-in vehicle was a 65 Mustang Fastback. In the Skagit Drive-In. A drive-in theater long gone. As are most drive-ins in America. Outdated relics of the past.
The TRV Boondoggle Drive-In will have 3 screens. Each screen will be able to be watched by movie goers in up to 300 cars. Tickets will be in the $6 to $8 range.
The TRV Boondoggle Drive-In propaganda promoters are saying they anticipate around 300,000 TRVBDIT (Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Drive-In Theater) movie goers a year.
That works out to about 822 paying customers a day.
That sounds believable. Sort of like how the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and its propaganda co-horts claimed 7 to 8 million visitors a year to the Fort Worth Cabela's sporting goods store would make Cabela's the top tourist attraction in Texas. With apparently no one doing the math to see how unlikely was a daily average of around 22,000 visitors to a sporting goods store.
The Tarrant Regional Water District con jobbers are claiming they will realize $1.7 million in rent from the lease to the Coyote Theater start-up.
I have found no info as to how this deal came to be. Was it the same type machinations that got Tim Love his sweetheart deal for the cool new Woodshed Smokehouse?
I can not help but wonder if one of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Drive-In Movie Theater's screens will be facing the Trinity River, so that in summer, the Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Feces Infested Floats can enjoy watching a movie from the comfort of their favorite dangerously polluted river?
My only drive-in experiences have been in Washington, decades ago, before most cars had air conditioning. In Washington you don't often have any need for air-conditioning. With modern cars and air conditioners, how does that work at a movie drive-in theater?
Three screens with up to 500 cars each? That'd be 1,500 cars running their A/Cs to keep cool on a HOT Texas summer night. That does not sound very eco-friendly to me.
I remember drive-ins, too. I also remember the mosquitos. I can't imagine that they wouldn't have a prohibition against running your car while sitting there watching a movie for two + hours.
ReplyDeleteThis makes about as much sense to me as someone putting 1500 Lazy Boys along the river, each with an attached big screen, and waitpersons bringing your appletini and popcorn. Hey! Wait! You didn't see that idea. How do I contact the Boondoggle?
I like Jim Lane all right but I do not want to see him in the backseat next door.
CatsPaw, your genius Lazy Boy idea is safe with me, as long as you give me a cut of the action.
ReplyDeleteI like Jim Lane too, he won me over at that TRIP Forum in the Botanic Garden. But, I really think he should stay out of the back seat of his neighbor's 57 Chevy.
After commenting on the TRV announcement via Face Book, I was directed to e-mail or call for any questions. The e-mail address I was given didn't work so I called to get a working address. I then e-mailed Matt Oliver with my questions, but have received no response so far. All I would really like to know is a detail overlooked by both the Star Telegram and the Fort Worth Business Press. How much money was approved by the Water District for this project. Are we again, as with the Woodshed, furnishing the start-up expenses? Who is paying for the clean-up of the site, as well as the cost of the buildings , screens etc.? I don't think these questions are unreasonable and am surprised that the journalists did not think to ask them.
ReplyDeleteYou must be new to Fort Worth, PJ, if it surprises you that the local media did not ask obvious questions about this drive-in deal. If you have just arrived in Fort Worth, let me be the first to let you know you are now living in a very backwards, corrupt company town.
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