Belmont Park's Giant Dipper coaster turns 100

S1: Hey , there's San Diego. I'm Andrew Bracken in for Jade Hindman. San Diego's Belmont Park is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. We hear all about its history and why it remains a top local attraction after all these years. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. One of San Diego's most beloved attractions is turning 100 this year. The Giant Dipper roller coaster at Belmont Park. The amusement park is still bustling a century later. Holding a lot of history within it. Midday edition host Jade Hindman sat down with the general manager of the park , Steve Thomas , to learn about how they're celebrating.

S2: So take me back to 1925. In San Diego , a man named John de Spreckels had an idea for a resort.

S3: He's traveling up and down the California coast. And he saw , you know , the coastline of San Diego and just thought it was fantastic. It was a beautiful spot , very undeveloped. And , um , he thought he would settle there. And he started building a sugar factory and then slowly doing some real estate plays. And he's a part of Balboa Park and Hotel del Coronado and all of these iconic properties in San Diego. And he , you know , they built this peninsula , which is mission Bay and Mission Beach today. And then they divided up all of the lots of land. And in order to create an attraction to get San Diego residents down to Mission Beach , they created the roller coaster. And he had these two guys , Fred Church and Thomas Prior there , you know , roller coaster , wooden roller coaster aficionado , aficionado and builders of that time. Just one year prior to ours , in 1924 , they had built the Santa Cruz Boardwalk Giant Dipper with the same name. And so this is just one year later. He had them come down and build this wooden roller coaster right on the sand and the plunge pool , which is also 100 years old. Um , right on , right on the beach. Which is funny to build a pool on the beach , but , you know , he did. And the reason behind it was to create a draw for all of the people to come down and check out these lots that they built on Mission Beach and to sell the lots. And that's how it started. And it just kind of rolled from there. And Belmont Park has seen so many ups and downs , which is a bit of a pun , but it's very , very , very true.

S2:

S3: I think it's been burnt down three times in total. It has was on the brink of complete closure in the 70s and 80s. So they had all of Belmont Park was was boarded up and it actually passed through city council to be completely demolished. And so they were going to bulldoze Giant Dipper roller coaster and all of Belmont Park and just and turn it into green scape. And a group came along , uh , called the Save the Coaster Committee. And it was a bunch of fantastic individuals who partnered with then the Santa Cruz Seaside Company to come down here and rebuild Giant Dipper. And this was late 80s , and then it reopened in the early 90s with what Belmont Park is today. So just a great group of people that wanted to salvage the history of it. And then it became a national historical monument. Giant Dipper and the plunge pool. And they're just these beautiful , iconic pieces that aren't around anymore. And there's not too many left. I mean , Belmont Park is one of only three beachside boardwalks in the state of California , and it's one of only about eight wooden roller coasters left in the country and one of the oldest in the world. Wow.

S2: Wow. Well , tell me this because I know the park really eventually closed in 1976. Um , and by the late 60s and 70s , the park's conditioned really fell into disrepair. And many San Diego residents wanted to actually see the demolition of the Giant Dipper. Tell me about that.

S3: It's interesting. You you had these parts and pieces that were individual , meaning you had a gentleman that operated just Giant Dipper roller coaster , and he owned that attraction or piece. And then you had other people that had , you know , um , a little store in here , a little shop there , operating some other rides. And it's functioned that way for a long time up until we took it over. Uh , meaning we being Pacific Enterprises in 2011 , 2012. And what happened back then was nobody cared for the entire property as a whole. You didn't have one group that came in and said , this is something special , you know ? I mean , Mission Beach is it's so beautiful , nestled between the bay and the Pacific Ocean. When you zoom out on it or you see those beautiful drone shots , it's just a fantastic piece of property. And so you didn't have that care around the whole property for what it could be. And it slowly kind of just deteriorated. And that's something that we saw. And when we took it over and poured a lot of , you know , time , energy and financial resources into the property to make it a unified , truly iconic , you know , beach , boardwalk property. Wow.

S2: Wow. Well , you know , a lot of people flock to Belmont Park each year.

S3: I mean , at the end of the day , if you're at summertime in San Diego , you're going to have a mix of tourists and locals. We typically in peak season , which is June and July , we're about 60% tourist and 40% local. And that flips in the shoulder and off seasons. Because you know what a lot of the tourists don't know is how amazing the weather here is in San Diego. When you get into August , September , October and November , you get May Gray and June gloom and April showers and all these things. But when you get into August , it is absolutely stunning. The weather is fantastic and we have tons of parking available here , and that's when we see the locals pick up. Uh , something that I started back in 2019 was there wasn't an , you know , the park wasn't unified. And so when you don't have that , you can't do things like have an annual pass for the locals. And we launched that in 2019 when we put the whole park together , meaning I joined the attractions part of the business , which was a separate , separate operator with the rides part of the business , which was a different operator , and we put both together. Now we offer an annual pass , and the annual pass is 100 bucks. It's very inexpensive , and we , uh , get about 16,000 of those a year , which are mainly locals , and they're able to come down here and enjoy the park as many times as they want. And being free parking and being such easy access in those , you know , the August , September or October , we get a lot of great traffic down here , those times of year , and it's mainly the locals that come down.

S2: Well , you know , your centennial anniversary celebration , it runs through Labor Day. Um , first I want to know , like what sorts of things are happening around this celebration.

S3: When we talked about the centennial , it was , you know , really important for us to take a community first approach. And something that we know at Belmont Park is we know that the tourists that come to San Diego or Southern California , they want that that San Diego experience. They want to have authentic food offerings to the region. They want to go to the beach. They want to be able to walk up and down the boardwalk. They love that. And think about San Diegans is they love that too ? They love San Diego. And so Belmont Park is what I call quintessential San Diego. We're not trying to be a theme park. Our theme is San Diego as much as we possibly can. So we get even locally sourced food , um , and procured by , you know , the dockside groups , like all of our fish comes there for our sushi restaurant. We have a local rancher that brings all of the beef in. Um , so we try to source and bring in as much local as we can. And , um , when we were looking at the centennial , I wanted to make sure that the deals and the things that we did were going towards the community versus , you know , some sort of big advertising campaign. And we started lowering prices throughout the park because we knew what the people were feeling. Right. Everything's going up. Prices are going up every time you go out to eat. So we're offering $1 tacos on Tuesday. That represents the 100 years we're doing $1 dipper rides on Tuesday. A half off arcade. We lowered the prices at some of our our burger joint inside. And so we're just doing things like that that are promoting people to come down here and have a fantastic time on any budget. And we wanted to give back to the community versus just do some sort of , you know , 100 year ad campaign. Hmm.

S2: Hmm.

S3: I mean , in addition to being a National Historic monument , both Giant Dipper and the plunge pool , it's an experience. And I think with , you know , social media coming up on the rise and so much happening in the digital space , people are looking for the the analog experience still , and they want to come down to the park. They want to ride rides , they want to have a sense of community and be able to smell the ocean and go for a walk on the beach. So I think there's a bright future for Belmont Park. And with Pacifica at the helm , you know , we're constantly investing in the property. We're looking to make it safer , cleaner , more rides , more family focused , um , more music offerings. Just making it a true destination for for San Diegans and tourists.

S2: Well , I've been speaking with Steve Thomas. He's the general manager of Belmont Park. Steve , happy 100 years. And thank you so much for joining us.

S3: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

S2: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.