With park revenues down, the company was forced to seek relief through merchant cash advances with sometimes onerous rates. However, through that year, bad weather, including Hurricane Michael, caused a sharp drop in attendance across the parks. In 2018, Adventure Holdings undertook a massive renovation to the Jacksonville Beach park, which they originally hoped to pay for out of the chain’s revenues. While Adventure Holdings owned the parks and attractions themselves, in most cases they leased the land from a different company, National Retail Properties. Unfortunately, the drive to keep the parks updated and competitive contributed to a reversal of fortune for Adventure Landing. Owen Milford tries out the vortex of the Eye of the Storm slide. Nonetheless, with Jacksonville’s growing quickly and the Beaches communities’ continuing to draw thousands of tourists and day-trippers each week, the opportunity was there for what the Woodburns envisioned. Age and the draw of larger, well-funded theme parks farther south brought a tragic end to Jacksonville Beach’s old boardwalk and many others like it across the country. Jacksonville Beach was no stranger to amusement parks from the early 20th century into the 1970s, the town’s beachfront boardwalk was packed with carnival entertainment including Ferris wheels, bumper cars, bowling, games and even a roller coaster. So later that same year, the Woodburns acquired a stretch of undeveloped land on Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville Beach for their new project. The Woodburns then set their sights higher: creating the biggest amusement park in the First Coast. Woodburn overhauled both parks with then cutting-edge features like arcades, go-karts and batting cages, giving the two locations stronger prospects for attracting customers than miniature golf alone. In 1994, Putt-Putt sent the Woodburns to Jacksonville so that Hank could work his magic on the city’s two aging locations on Beach Boulevard and Blanding Boulevard. Since 1971, Hank Woodburn had worked for miniature golf business Putt-Putt, where he specialized in updating aging venues, adding new features and attractions to keep things fresh. Adventure Landing came onto the scene in 1995, the brainchild of Hank and Susan Woodburn.
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