With a tiny bit of pomp and circumstance, Lompoc city officials signed a one-year contract with Polish entrepreneur Eva Blaisdell and her company, California Space Center LLC, handing over 82 acres of city-owned property to build a multimillion-dollar theme park.
The contract signing took place before the Lompoc City Council meeting on June 2 and gives Blaisdell exclusive rights to negotiate with the city on the project. The contract’s intent is to hash out details over how a space theme park would be built on the land near Allan Hancock College.
Specifically, City Administrator Patrick Wiemiller wants to know what’s being built and how.
“We want to have a real solid understanding of what their vision is,” Wiemiller said.
But because Blaisdell has yet to prove how she will come up with the money to build the park, the contract comes with conditions.
In order for the project to go forward, the city is giving Blaisdell 90 days to detail how she will finance the project, according to Wiemiller.
“We’re still waiting for the completion of all of the information,” Wiemiller said. “We can’t get into detail, but it still has a long way to go.”
Wiemiller added that Blaisdell estimated the project’s cost to be around $300 million and would need to provide some of the money up front during the negotiating period, but couldn’t say how much.
Similar projects were considered by the City Council several times in the past, and then scrapped due to an inability to get the money together.
According to Lompoc Economic Development Director and Assistant City Administrator Teresa Gallavan, the city canceled an agreement with the Environmental Education Group in April 2013 after the group couldn’t get the adequate financing or development experience to carry out its proposal.
But Blaisdell’s feeling pretty optimistic about this one. She said that she has met with several companies, including IMAX, Apple, Amazon, and Sony, all of which she said expressed interest in the project. Blaisdell said that the project could bring up to 3,000 jobs to the city.
This article appears in Jun 11-18, 2015.
