One of Los Angeles’ most famous attractions is under new ownership.
Santa Monica Pier’s Pacific Park, the amusement park on stilts that has been featured in films like Forrest Gump and Iron Man and in the opening titles of Three’s Company, has sold to SC Holdings. The investment firm, which specializes in sports, entertainment and hospitality bought it for an undisclosed sum.
The new owners plan to invest $10 million over the next five years into Pacific Park’s food and entertainment programs and general operations.
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Run by managing partners Jason Stein and Daniel Haimovic, SC Holdings has previously invested in LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s entertainment studio The SpringHill Company, as well as the merging of Major League Pickleball and the Professional Pickleball Association.
Pacific Park vice president and general manager Jeff Klocke will continue to lead day-to-day operations on the pier along with his management team. Klocke calls the new ownership “a milestone moment” for the attraction, which features 12 rides, including a solar-powered ferris wheel and the Route 66 West Coaster roller coaster.
It also still features and operates the carousel in the Looff Hippodrome, which was erected in 1922 and features 44 hand-carved horses. The Hippodrome was a key location in 1973’s The Sting, the popularity of film saved it and the carousel from destruction.
The pier, which sits at the foot of Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica, was originally two separate piers, the first built in 1909 and the second in 1916.
In 1997’s Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack Dawson references the pier, which would have been three years old in 1912, the year Titanic took its doomed maiden voyage.
