Legoland coming to Atlanta! (Alpharetta, Berlin: real estate, hotel, college)

[tonygeorgia]

Legoland scouts city for ‘Discovery Center’ - Atlanta Business Chronicle:


Legoland plans to enter the Atlanta market, brick by tiny plastic brick.
The company that builds and operates Legoland theme parks is scouting four sites in metro Atlanta for its Legoland Discovery Center concept, described as an indoor attraction and Lego retail store, with hopes to open by spring 2011.
There are currently only three Legoland Discovery Centers in the world: Chicago, and Berlin and Duisburg, Germany.

[atlantagreg30127]

It would be nice if they were able to secure land around the Aquarium to help further develop the tourism zone around there.

[noah]

This would be great, especially somewhere around centennial park. The future keeps looking better.


Like the Chicago center, Atlanta’s Legoland will have a scale-model city skyline, Samuels said.

Lego model makers spend five to six months, using 250,000 to 300,000 Lego bricks, to recreate a skyline and build the Miniland, he said.

Legoland’s United Kingdom-based parent company, Merlin Entertainments Group, is looking at sites in Alpharetta near North Point Mall, Atlantic Station in Midtown, the downtown area, and the Buckhead area near Phipps Plaza, said Howard Samuels, national real estate adviser for Legoland and president of Samuels & Co. Inc. in Los Angeles.

[lastminutemom]

I want to work there~ Playing with Legos all day sounds like a blast!

[rcsteiner]

Wow! And I thought the little Lego Imagination Center at the Mall of America was pretty cool. This is ... a lot larger!

[wxjay]

Wow, first a pirate museum and now a building of Legos! Really moving into the bigtime Atlanta!

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by wxjay

Wow, first a pirate museum and now a building of Legos! Really moving into the bigtime Atlanta!

Maybe they can combine the two, and build the pirates a ship made of Legos.......

[lastminutemom]

Better yet, they can make the legos out of wax and the pirate stuff out of the waxy legos.

Madame Tussards may be coming as well!

I am trying to envision all this in downtown. Will out of state families make downtown Atlanta a destination? Will local families venture downtown enough to make these projects successful? I know that the Children Museum struggles and so does the Aquarium, but I think both of these are to expensive to be enjoyed often by most ATL families.

[noah]

Its not as if nobody goes downtown around centennial park. There always seem to be people around that area. I had the same thought about Alpharetta. I think it will do fine in any location but would rather see it intown where its more accessible to everyone, especially tourists.

Add the college football HOF, Legoland, National Health Museum, Center for Civil and Human rights to go along with the increasing number of restaurants, CNN Center, World of Coke, Aquarium, Children's Museum and it seems like it will be a very popular place and a great thing for any city to have, all featured around a great park which hosts many great events. This is all reality, the only one that has not announced downtown as their site is Legoland. I believe Hard Rock even had plans to build a hotel down there, may be on hold currently though.

Originally Posted by lastminutemom

I am trying to envision all this in downtown. Will out of state families make downtown Atlanta a destination? Will local families venture downtown enough to make these projects successful? I know that the Children Museum struggles and so does the Aquarium, but I think both of these are to expensive to be enjoyed often by most ATL families.

[Tresninas]

Originally Posted by lastminutemom

Better yet, they can make the legos out of wax and the pirate stuff out of the waxy legos.

Madame Tussards may be coming as well!

I am trying to envision all this in downtown. Will out of state families make downtown Atlanta a destination? Will local families venture downtown enough to make these projects successful? I know that the Children Museum struggles and so does the Aquarium, but I think both of these are to expensive to be enjoyed often by most ATL families.

I agree. These tickets/annual membership prices are far too expensive. We are members of the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga and the Creative Discovery Museum (also in Chattanooga) because the prices in Atlanta are too high.