Developers of a proposed Bible Park USA in northern Rutherford County began a series of open houses for the public Monday, displaying story boards of what the park will look like to visitors.
Not all those who attended were convinced that the park makes sense. Neighbor Gerald Sullivan remains opposed.
“The location, really, is the weakest thing, that I don’t like, ’cause they’re building right in a residential area. It needs to be further out.”
Sullivan says the park should be planned like the first development of Opryland – far away from homes.
But Doug Shafer says he was impressed by the homework that the developers had done on noise and traffic issues.
“I guess I’m not convinced yet, it’s still gonna be a while but, I’m much more positive than I was. I guess I was sort of negative at first, when I first heard it.”
Shafer’s questions were among the most common – about traffic, light, noise and just whether or not the park is viable.
The developers say they will surround the park with a raised earthen wall and a 50 foot swath of trees to shield it from the outside world.
They will host two more informational meetings Tuesday – the first one is from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Smyrna Town Center, and the second is from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Murfreesboro at the Lane Agri-Park.
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SafeHarbor Holding, LLC, Managing Director Armon Bar-Tur says they’re trying to address all concerns.
“…We’ve done as much as we can to minimize any issue, because the issue for us is not just our direct neighbors, but it’s also our visitors. And we have to try to maximize the visitor experience, for every visitor, every time they come to the park.
The CEO of the project, Ronen Paldi of Oregon, runs a tour company that takes tourists to the Biblical lands, from Egypt back around to Greece.
“I came with the idea, four and a half years ago, with the simple reason to bring more people closer to the images and the stories of the Bible, realizing that not everybody can make the trip, so let’s bring it here.”
It’s a story park, not a theme park, Paldi says. It’s not Jewish or Baptist or Catholic.
“This park does not represent my own personal view of the Bible. This is not my Bible. It’s THE Bible. And we are visualizing stories of the Bible, Old and New Testament. The park has no religious agenda. We are not a church, we are not a ministry. We are just visualizing the stories of the Bible.”
The story boards at the display show a sort of fourth-grade Sunday School treatment of the stories – for instance the opening of the Red Sea already has a Pillar of Fire advancing, condensing a couple of chapters of Exodus. And the quick view of Creation has the bright light forming while dophins and blue whales are already jumping in the adjacent waters, giving a kind of seven-day synopsis.
The economic study of the proposed park is more down to earth. Dr. Mike Hicks of Ball State University says the story park, with few rides, isn’t exactly a new thing.
“In many ways, Disney’s early Magic Kingdom looked a lot like this. They had a few rides, but a much more themed activity. So, there’s no perfect example of this type, but there are others being built around the country, and frankly, as the population ages, and there are more activities, we see more of this. So it’s not completely unheard of.”
He says the economic advantages will go beyond construction costs and salaries for actors and snack bar workers.
“The first big impact is obviously going to be the park itself, which has entertainment and those sorts of activities within it, but outside the park, we see the big impact being in hotels and motels, and in sort of mid-level eating places.”
The project is planned to draw 1.5 million visitors a year when fully mature, according to the economists. Jobs at the park would put an estimated $44 million a year into circulation, the economists say.
Further action on the park awaits local zoning changes at the county level.
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