Businessman proposes turning abandoned parts of Detroit into zombie Apocalypse theme park

Derelict areas of Detroit face being taken over by hordes of 'flesh and brain-eating zombies' if an ambitious business plan takes off.

Entrepreneur Mark Siwak wants to create live-action terror theme park 'Z World' on Motor City's run-down and abandoned streets.

Customers would pay to be chased by professional actors and try to seek shelter in ghostly homes, factories and businesses.

Siwak said it would breathe fresh life into the rundown city, giving jobs to hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

But critics say it is an 'exploitative and insensitive ploy' to profit from Detroit's problems.

Curbed Detroit blogger Sarah Cox said the plan 'sounds a lot like all that fun we had during the 1960s race riots'.

She added: 'It's nice to know Z Land is finally going to capitalise on our love of adrenaline rushes and nostalgia. Now even visitors from the 'burbs can 'wonder if they will make it through the night.'

Detroit has become known in recent years for pioneering 'creative solutions' like urban farming and pedestrian-friendly greenway trials.

Soaring budget deficits and a declining population has forced businesses and the authorities to 'think outside the box'.

And Siwak, who has raised $2,200 of the $140,000 needed through fundraising website IndieGoGo, said his theme park could be the perfect solution.

He told CBS Detroit: 'The city can only have so many urban farms or similar uses for vacant plots.'

And he revealed he is already receiving CVs from hundreds of residents keen to work at the tourist attraction.

He added: 'While zombies are great, the real neat thing about this project is the potential to inject some life into a forgotten neighbourhood - with the opportunity to work with neighbourhood groups and organisation'.

The project would follow in the footsteps of Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse, where thrill-seekers wield paint ball guns to play hide-and-seek with undead zombies in a formerly abandoned truck stop.

source has some interesting pictures

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Leave a Comment

kaelstra 6th-Jul-2012 03:13 am (UTC)

I think it sounds great, but I am a enthusiastic zombie fangirl.

the_glow_worm 6th-Jul-2012 03:19 am (UTC)

Uh.

bleed_peroxide 6th-Jul-2012 03:20 am (UTC)

I think it sounds kind of neat, honestly.

bitchsdangerous 6th-Jul-2012 03:24 am (UTC)

I guess I'm going to hell for getting excited at the thought of this...?

Knott's Scary Farm on steroids year round. *squee*

chasingtides 6th-Jul-2012 03:24 am (UTC)

Am I actually the only person here who thinks this is kind of gross?

... By which I mean really, really gross.

mollywobbles867 6th-Jul-2012 03:36 am (UTC)

No, you're not. I think it's a waste of resources.

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sophiaserpentia 6th-Jul-2012 03:25 am (UTC)

Hmm. At first I was like, "Neat!"

But then I pictured them doing the same here in New Orleans, and my enthusiasm waned quite a lot. There's a tragedy behind every abandoned home.

bitchsdangerous 6th-Jul-2012 04:10 am (UTC)

Yeah, the more I've thought about it... not good.

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magicpebble 6th-Jul-2012 03:32 am (UTC)

This sounds pretty disgusting to me, and I also don't think it would bring money or jobs to Detroit. A zombie theme park is totally a novelty that would shut down within a few months, IMO.

mollywobbles867 6th-Jul-2012 03:37 am (UTC)

Yep.

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gargoylekitty 6th-Jul-2012 03:32 am (UTC)

I like zombie stuff, but nothing about this really seems a good idea. Choice of location/history + 'this whole thing is an accident waiting to happen' and no... If they want an area with a bunch of empty buildings, they can build them themselves(would also make it a lot safer).

amyura 6th-Jul-2012 04:06 am (UTC)

Making a profit off other people's misfortunes doesn't sound like a very nice idea. :/

redstar826 6th-Jul-2012 04:07 am (UTC)

raised $2,200 of the $140,000 needed through fundraising website IndieGoGo

I think it would take a lot more than $140,000 to make multiple abandoned buildings safe for crowds of people to be running through them.

lickety_split 6th-Jul-2012 04:35 am (UTC)

And paying people to actually work there...

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dumblesinwinter 6th-Jul-2012 04:08 am (UTC)

how about no

thevelvetsun 6th-Jul-2012 04:22 am (UTC)

"The city can only have so many urban farms."

As if a city having too much food was a problem. Imagine if there were enough urban farms to feed everyone in Detroit? That would be amazing.

13chapters 6th-Jul-2012 04:36 am (UTC)

ikr? Detroit has a major problem with access to healthy, affordable food. I think there's a lot of room to go before there's too many urban farms.

This is a bad idea.

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explodingpuppet 6th-Jul-2012 04:24 am (UTC)

As someone who lives in Detroit near many said "abandoned parts," I don't know how to feel about this.

explodingpuppet 6th-Jul-2012 04:26 am (UTC)

yeah, I've decided no

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liyosa 6th-Jul-2012 04:45 am (UTC)

I'm imagining they'll actually fence off those areas - like 'private property' or something like that, before they start hosting those things.

But I can't imagine why they can't move it to a very abandoned city - such as the ones in the West (boom towns that went ghost town). Perhaps they think that part of the city is abandoned enough so that it won't cause too much harm, but most paintball things I went to were a good forty five minutes away from the city itself (I live in Ireland for school though, and that's where I did my paintball-y things, so someone correct me if I'm wrong).

kyra_neko_rei 6th-Jul-2012 06:16 am (UTC)

That is a definite concern there. I live half a block away from left field of a ballpark and my next-door neighbors in between us have regular baseballs landing in their yard; paintballs travel further and make more of a mess.

cupcake_dream88 6th-Jul-2012 04:54 am (UTC)

This zombie obsession is honestly rediculous....

futureframe 6th-Jul-2012 04:57 am (UTC)

I haven't seen anyone else post about this, but I don't feel particularly gross about this because I feel like it's an bigger budget idea inspired by Theatre Bizarre (which I got a private tour of last year and got to talk to them about how it grew out of needing to artistically transform the blight in their neighborhood). http://theatrebizarre.com/

but "like the 1960s race riots?" holy what the fuckery.

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brennessel 6th-Jul-2012 05:06 am (UTC)

Somehow I kind of doubt this is actually going to happen.

cellared 6th-Jul-2012 05:10 am (UTC)

This is gross.

cellared 6th-Jul-2012 08:15 am (UTC)

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTEIGtHXOT4

kawaiimamimi 6th-Jul-2012 06:44 am (UTC)

Ah, yes, I read about this the other day. It sounds awesome! I really love exploring abandoned buildings too, so it'd be even more intriguing.

greenwick 6th-Jul-2012 08:36 am (UTC)

I could see a tour working, but not a theme park. Unless it is an illegal health hazard park. They could also set up a North Korea Reenactment Adventure park too for a lot less money, and with as much bad taste.

Everything about Detroit I have heard maes me sad and angry. I can't fathom the minds of people who would be able to have fun there, standing around in the evidence of a lot of horrible failure.

hashishinahooka 6th-Jul-2012 11:38 am (UTC)

I am a Detroiter and a rabid zombie fan, and this is a joke to me. The reason we have so many abandoned buildings in the first place is that it's too expensive to do anything with them. This is a hot mess waiting to happen.

You know what I want in Detroit? More theatres. More grocery stores. Better schools. Safer places to hang out on weekends. More industries that aren't auto.

luchador_kaiju 6th-Jul-2012 12:33 pm (UTC)

Ugh, I really don't get the appeal of zombies and I feel like they're just some current fad. I don't think it's a brilliant idea to make the theme something like zombies. Once nerds start moving on to the next neato thing, it'll be pointless.

Also just no...

goblinthebamf 6th-Jul-2012 12:59 pm (UTC)

Here in Buffalo we've demoed entire blocks in some parts of the city; I have to say I would find this idea much less wrenching than seeing hundreds of acres of empty lots where a thriving neighborhood once was.

I could see some value in stabilizing the buildings in a few blocks but keeping the abandoned look to the buildings and then marketing it to groups like this, movie/tv producers, or tours of architects... at least until the market picks up enough where we can finish rehabbing these buildings and put families back into them- make it a sort of active landbank instead of a more passive one, where in addition to stabilizing, locking down the buildings and then waiting until the market is back, we have people regularly walking through the stabilized structures and then bringing the market back when they realize they can own the home they just walked through.

The Rust Belt needs unique ideas and this could be one.

But that's not what this group is talking about. They are talking about taking ruin porn to the next level, and, as others have said, it's gross and completely impractical.

goblinthebamf 6th-Jul-2012 01:12 pm (UTC)

In Buffalo, our Habitat for Humanity chapter can do a rehab for $45000. That's relying on volunteer labor for much of the project, including volunteer expert labor, like engineers and professional contractors, plus a ton of donated supplies.

For argument's sake, let's just assume that as the baseline cost per building- we're talking about just stabilizing the shell of these buildings so it doesn't kill anyone. (Even that, though, is likely to cost much more.)

So, with a budget of $140,000 they can fix... 3-5 houses?

(edited to fix html... sorry, haven't commented on LJ in an age.)

Edited at 2012-07-06 01:15 pm (UTC)