After seven years of lying in pieces, the Santa Monica Ferris Wheel is being reconstructed to debut this summer in its new home along the Oklahoma River.
In 2008, the Santa Monica Pier sold the famous nine-story-tall, 30-foot-wide Ferris wheel on eBay after acquiring a new, larger wheel with LED lighting.
Grant Humphreys, chief executive officer of Humphreys Real Estate Investments of Oklahoma City, placed the winning bid and purchased the wheel for $132,400.
“When we saw this, we thought what an amazing, iconic, nostalgic experience,” Humphreys said to Fox News.
Since 1996, the wheel’s 20 gondolas and 5,400 light bulbs provided more than 3 million ocean-view rides from the Santa Monica Pier. The wheel was featured in more than 130 television shows and 28 movies ranging from “Iron Man” to “Hannah Montana: The Movie.”
Humphreys’ plan of moving the Ferris wheel to Oklahoma was a part of an urban development project on the Downtown Airpark along Western Avenue. The Humphreys family had purchased the airpark for $7.2 million in 2006. However, when the economy tanked in 2008, all plans were put on hold.
The Ferris wheel was moved to Wichita, Kansas, where it has been residing at the Chance Rides plant. Chance Rides manufactured the Ferris wheel for its 1996 opening on the Santa Monica Pier, where the attraction seated 600 passengers an hour.
Clark McDonald, sales and projects coordinator at Chance Rides, is managing the reconstruction and new design of the Ferris wheel.
“We will be returning it in like-new condition,” McDonald said to NewsOK. “There is a lot of work that goes into it, which has been going on for some time now.”
As they reassemble the attraction for its new home in Oklahoma, LED lights are being installed as an upgrade to the wheel at the request of Humphreys. The gondolas and bracings are being cleaned and repainted in preparation for the wheel’s rebirth.
The Ferris wheel is expected to begin rides this summer in its newly secured location on the south shore of the Oklahoma River, where the urban development of the Downtown Airpark will be breaking ground.
Thomas Ducat, a native Californian and Oklahoma Christian University senior, visited the Santa Monica pier before the original Ferris wheel was replaced.
“It was iconic at the beach there and it will be cool to bring it to Oklahoma City to diversify the many boring, general attractions in Oklahoma,” Ducat said. “It will definitely bring a different flavor to the city, which I think it’s necessary for them to do.”
Blair Humphreys, Grant Humphreys’ brother, is in charge of the redesign and implementation of a new urban district called Wheeler. The district is an urban neighborhood development in the works with the new Ferris wheel as the focal point of the community.
“We fully expect to have the Ferris wheel spinning this summer and to break ground on the first phase of Wheeler by the end of the year,” Blair said to NewsOK. “We have a lot of people involved with this. We are working hand in hand with city leadership, elected leaders and city staff, to get through a variety of different issues to doing a development on the Oklahoma River.”
Wheeler is projected to be a modern urban community with multiple housing options, shops, offices, a grocery store, and potentially a school. The Ferris wheel will act as a landmark to the new district that is hopeful to attract food trucks, live music and local artists within the first year.
Senior Connor Shavers said he is looking forward to the potential growth Wheeler can bring to Oklahoma City.
“I definitely think it’s a good idea because we’re becoming more like Austin with the development of Midtown, all of our food trucks and the whitewater rafting by the Oklahoma River,” Shavers said. “I think another area outside of OKC to draw traffic will be really cool.”
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