WHAT WOULD IT TAKE for OHV park in RTP?

DOUGHBOYDD2500HD

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I know i dont mean to beat a ded horse to death here but this morning i had a serious chat with a few investors that asked me what it would take. I am to present a business proposal of everything involved to make a OHV park for all size rigs in the RTP area in nc. Clayton raleigh durhan chapel hill cary area. I know there were a few posts about this before but i wanna see if we can be serious and chat about what you all think. How many acres would it take and how much would people be willing to pay a day and camping and shower etc etc. Would we be able to host comps and have bvendors and big meets and stuff lkike that? I would really appreciate any advice and info you could provide me. Thanks lets all talk about this.
 
I think the biggest challenge would be finding a supply of large rocks to build obstacles out of :popcorn:
 
Two different types of parks. You have your DPG type and your pumpkin center type park. Then you have your Tellico, Paragon, Callalantee, Windrock type parks.

You are looking at either lots of obstacles, or lots of land and or both.

Land to create on
Labor to create
Machinery to create
Supplies
A goal as to what you want

IN that part of the state you are looking at about everything being man made.

Insurance, upkeep, someone to run it.

several hundred acres to begin with.

Lots to think about.

as far as charging, Look at the cost of using other facilities, that'll give you an idea of what the market will bear


oh, and a Big truck to haul big rocks
 
There's private Mud Bogs across the entire area, might check with one of the owners? I think it some sort of Event Permit that has to be purchased if I remember right through the State. Same would go for the Private Go-Cart / Dirt bike tracks. I'm sure the main issues would be Liability Insurance and Local, State and Federal taxes.
I was talking with one Mud Bog owner that said he writes off all his tractors and equipment it takes to run the bog as Farm Use to the Private Family Farm it's held on. He also contributes to the Town through the Fire Dept / Police donations just to keep them off his back for noise violations. And I notice that he sponsors raffles to help local charities during every single event. I'm going to guess that he goes through that hassle for a reason.
I'm sure there are ways around just about everything if you know the systems. Also have to be established in some way to take in money and distribute amongst the employers running the event. Then there's consessions with both tax and FDA rating issues. Adequate Port-a-Johns is probably govorned if truth be known considering the RDU ways of things.
Just brainstorming thoughts to find a good place to start. I haven't really the slightest.
 
I think you would need 1000acres that will allow 15-20miles of trails. but like it was said above, finding rocks and a way to move them would be the hard part
 
i think the demand is there. there alot of 4x4ers in western NC, but everytime at URE or somewhere im allways hereing

"where are you from" "im from Raleigh"

so there deffinatley going to be people there. but i see land and rocks being hard. although im sure theres a boat load of paper work to.
 
Good luck. You are talking about a high priced realestate area, and you want to build a park on it that requires a large amount of work/liability for a very small return. If you had just 100 acres at $5000 an acre (I doubt you would ever find this anywhere near Raleigh) Thats a 1/2 million dollar investment before you even get started. If you charged $20 a rig that would take 25000 visits just to break even on your land cost.

Like I said, good luck finding someone to back such a venture in that area. Not to mention all the "not in my backyard" mofo's who live in that area.

Maybe you could find an abandoned rock quarry that is not full of water (once again, good luck). Then you have rocks already there, and an otherwise worhtless piece of land.
 
I don't think you need a huge trail system at all, I think if you were to build somthing very similar to what the dudes in Lincolinton built that'd be your best bet, have maybe not so much land but different obsticles. I mean have everything from a strait mud pit, to a rock garden, to ravines, to mix obsticle courses etc so that you can take your rig for the day/weekend and give a shot at just about any type of wheelin terrain you want w/o leaving Raleigh.

As far as charging, For a good park I'd probably pay like $20 entry fee max, maybe a little more to camp if there were facilities but unfortuantly nowadays anyone see's anything more than $20 charge for anything and they think twice.
 
IN that part of the state you are looking at about everything being man made.
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surprisingly, there are actually a number of interesting geological areas within a ~20-30 mile radius of raleigh that would prove to be quite challenging.

i myself never realized there was so much rock/hilly areas in spots until i took a geology class during college and we took trips to various places just outside of raleigh. mostly north and north west of the city, and one place north east. now, getting you hands on that land would be a whole other issue of course.
 
Alot of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ land is to much and building the obstacles wouldn't be cheap. Then your going to have to charge so much to make your investors happy with profit that no one will want to pay. To bring in the comp guys your going to need alot of serious obstacles like the man made courses out west. Then your going to need enough stuff to keep the weekend warriors happy and then more stuff to give the stock SUV owners something to do. A camping area, bathrooms, tractors, employees to make sure everyone pays. Way to much money doubt you would get an investor to put that much money on a risky business. Your also going to need to be ready for protest by locals and environmental groups that don't won't this in the area.
 
changed my mind about what I wanted to post in here...but buying land is not economically feasible...
 
I think the whole jist of this thread was like all of doughboy's threads. "Look at me, my freinds building a buggy, I want to work for a fourwheeling company, I know where there are big rocks, I talked to some people about a park, Hey I know those guys, there are my freinds(but the don't know it yet), I go wheeling ,but I don't go wheeling, I know somebody who knows somebody", and on, and on, and on.
 
rockmafia said:
I think the whole jist of this thread was like all of doughboy's threads. "Look at me, my freinds building a buggy, I want to work for a fourwheeling company, I know where there are big rocks, I talked to some people about a park, Hey I know those guys, there are my freinds(but the don't know it yet), I go wheeling ,but I don't go wheeling, I know somebody who knows somebody", and on, and on, and on.
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:shaking: :lol: :lol:
 
A lot of cabbage is what it would take. This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine who was thinking seriously about building a golf course. I told him what ONE putting green cost to install and maintain , he dropped the thought quickly, much like you should do with this one.
 
yeah,
Call your insurance carrier and ask for insurance for a one day 4wd event and listen to them laugh at you!
 
Ya know we have FREE open invites to the DPG. Around 1 a month or so. Most of the time we get 8 rigs there. When it opened there was plenty of rigs there every weekend. Now not so many. How much do we have to charge to get more rigs to come out? $20? How many rigs a weekend would it take to make the monthly payments on land, facilities, workers, Moving equipment, etc. Point is ours is FREE if we charged $20 per vehicle we would not have as many show up as we do now!
 
hmm, Wake county just spent 8.7 million dollars on 108 acres and you think any developer in his right mind is gonna open an OHV when he can get that kind of scratch ?

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1198874/

Wake County Schools is battling developers for land as it is, trying to procure sites for future needs. would be willing to bet Durham, Orange, Lee, Chatham and Johnston counties are or will be in the same boat very soon. ( Johnston County is considering a moratorium to slow building new homes, so they CAN keep up with the growth and the developers)

So where is the profit in tying up the land for that sort of use VS development for a more "practical" purpose ?

Yet again, you are blowing smoke up our collective asses with your attention whore antics.

Damn this gets old.
 
I think you could do something pretty decent on 200-400 acres. I used to wheel a place that was only 150 acres and it had no rocks (was next to a river) , had a lot of "nested trails". (like a supercross track looks in a stadium) it had several stream crossings, some hills, there were some fields also with ditches and mounds, etc.
I guess my point is, enough winding trails could be cut into a 400 acre parcel with the "mild" and "wild" trails right next to each other to keep most offroaders busy for a day ,sorta like this...
showimages.php

...you'd certainly need to be muffled around the triangle tho.

People drive 4 hours round-trip to pay $75 to ski on the same intermediate trails over and over all day , but its a "quality" experience. Some place like this would be loaded with Tahoes, Cayannes Navigators, Rav4s, Escalades,:bling: and every other never-been-dirty suv experiencing the great outdoors with "those extreme dudes" on the black diamond trails.

...ya, it just might work. ;)
 
Dang ya'll are jumpin all over matt like you do me when I come up with another of my stupid ideas

Honestly, and I'm speaking in general terms to everyone herewhos giving certain responses, you know who you are, you guys aught to be a little less "you are a dumbass" in your responses weather it be here in this thread or in others, sure present the info as to why this probably wouldn't work and give the advice but don't just dismiss the fact and kill the reputability of the thread by making the uneccesary comments.

Not only that but alot of you guys don't allow people to argue back without getting mad at them, I'm a prime example, I have the ideas then i present them someone says there bad then i present a counter point and someone immediatly likes to say the classic: "why do you ask if you already have your mind made up"

Duuuuh maybe they have something else to ask before they make there mind up, maybe they seeing something you arnt. Just give things a chance is all I'm sayin.

Yea this might be a bad idea, but who knows if he works this shit out I know for damn sure I'm gonna be at the park all the dang time cause theres no where else to wheel around Raleigh. I'll probably try and get a job there too, and i know i'd be down for helpin with it starting up/building manual labor wise.

Seriously keep the thread responses constructive or don't post if its a bad idea tell him why but if he wants to go on with it don't ruin the possiblity of something actually working out cause "you thought it was stupid" and ruin the thread
 
jrraw23 said:
Dang ya'll are jumpin all over matt like you do me when I come up with another of my stupid ideas
Honestly, and I'm speaking in general terms to everyone herewhos giving certain responses, you know who you are, you guys aught to be a little less "you are a dumbass" in your responses weather it be here in this thread or in others, sure present the info as to why this probably wouldn't work and give the advice but don't just dismiss the fact and kill the reputability of the thread by making the uneccesary comments.
Not only that but alot of you guys don't allow people to argue back without getting mad at them, I'm a prime example, I have the ideas then i present them someone says there bad then i present a counter point and someone immediatly likes to say the classic: "why do you ask if you already have your mind made up"
Duuuuh maybe they have something else to ask before they make there mind up, maybe they seeing something you arnt. Just give things a chance is all I'm sayin.
Yea this might be a bad idea, but who knows if he works this shit out I know for damn sure I'm gonna be at the park all the dang time cause theres no where else to wheel around Raleigh. I'll probably try and get a job there too, and i know i'd be down for helpin with it starting up/building manual labor wise.
Seriously keep the thread responses constructive or don't post if its a bad idea tell him why but if he wants to go on with it don't ruin the possiblity of something actually working out cause "you thought it was stupid" and ruin the thread
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I just call em like I see em.
 
He might have been willed some land and some of ya'll just rained on his idea/parade. I think if you build it, they will come but I believe it would be tough way to make a living if you started it from scratch. DPG seems to have had good adverse terrain to start with and the place in Lincolnton looks like it took ALOT of volunteer work to get it going. Hats off to both places for all their hard work and efforts to create more places to wheel at in NC. I haven't been to either spot but judging from the pics it looks like more extreme crawling than just an average locked wheeler could survive. Can anybody elaborate? Good luck if you make an attempt at getting your idea going. After all, crawling wouldn't exist if somebody didn't say "I wonder if I can build a rig to go over that line nobody will attempt".
 
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