Greater Cincinnati amusement park Coney Island is making big changes — and will shed a number of full-time and seasonal jobs as it does so.
The park’s President and CEO Robert Schutter, Jr. Sept. 9 filed paperwork with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act to signal that it will be shutting down most of the amusement rides at the park and eliminating 13 full-time and 272 seasonal positions.
The notification says the park anticipates closing the rides by Sept. 22. Affected employees will be given 60 days’ notice and will be laid off between Nov. 8 and Dec. 9 this year.
The location has been an amusement area since 1870 and has been known as Coney Island since 1887. The park’s famous Sunlite Pool has been in operations since 1925 and benefited from a $6 million renovation in 2016.
Coney Island, Inc. leadership says it is shuttering the rides portion of the park to focus on its more-popular water attractions and plans more big investments in those. The large events the park is known for, including Appalachian Festival and its popular Christmas lights event, will continue.
“All of our consumer research, all of our consumer feedback and all of our in-park data shows that the vast majority of our guests come to Coney Island because of the fun they have while in the Sunlite Pool area,” Schutter said in a news release about the closures.
This article appears in Sep 11-18, 2019.