"We don't need another Gold's Gym. We don't need another chicken place. We need things for the community." That's how Bowie resident Marecya Burton, whose family has lived in the city for nearly 25 years, described what she wants to see on the 515 acres where Six Flags America used to stand. She mentioned Allen Pond and its Sunday concerts as the kind of programming she'd like to see repeated at scale.
Almost a year after the park closed for good, that wish is running straight into a number the county has already made public. County Executive Aisha Braveboy has said she will judge the redevelopment's success by one measure: whether it eventually sends the county more commercial tax revenue than National Harbor does. National Harbor sits on 350 acres and brings in roughly $80 million a year for Prince George's County. Six Flags, on more than 500 acres, topped out around $3.5 million.
That gap is the real story here, more than any rumor about what ride might come back or what retailer might sign on. It tells you what kind of place this is likely to become, regardless of what residents ask for at the next town hall.
Why the Old Park Made So Little Money
Braveboy has pointed to a specific reason Six Flags underperformed a property less than a third its size: the park operated seasonally, closing during the colder months, and used only about a quarter of its acreage for rides and attractions. The other three-quarters sat as parking lots, buffer land, and undeveloped green space.
National Harbor, by contrast, runs year-round on a footprint built for density from the start, restaurants, hotels, retail, and event space stacked close together and generating revenue in every month of the calendar.
If the county's stated goal is to beat National Harbor's number on a bigger parcel, the math points in one direction: whatever gets built has to run twelve months a year and use far more than a quarter of the land. A seasonal amusement park, even an updated one, doesn't clear that bar. Neither does a low-density mix of trails and open lawn, however popular that idea has been at community meetings.
What's Actually Been Proposed So Far
The buyer is a joint venture between Thirty Five Ventures, the investment firm co-founded by Prince George's County native and NBA star Kevin Durant, and the Atlanta-based TPA Group, which is serving as master developer. At a community meeting in June, TPA Group's Adam Rashid described the goal as building "several different uses that kind of work together in a generative way to create a real ecosystem."
TPA has laid out five guiding pillars for the site:
- Entertainment
- Education
- Health and wellness
- Housing
- Innovation
Officials have said residents can expect a phased buildout over roughly the next decade, with early ideas ranging from retail and dining to sports facilities, trails, and green space. No formal site plan or construction timeline has been finalized. An online survey is gathering resident input, and the development team has said a dedicated project website will launch soon.
Here's the timeline as it stands:
- November 2, 2025 — Six Flags America and its adjacent water park, Hurricane Harbor Maryland, close permanently after the 2025 season.
- April 2026 — Six Flags sells the roughly 515-acre property to Thirty Five Ventures and TPA Group for an undisclosed amount, with proceeds going toward paying down debt from the 2024 Cedar Fair merger.
- June 2026 — TPA Group holds a community town hall to present its five pillars and gather early reaction.
- July 2026 — County officials confirm a phased buildout is planned over roughly the next decade, with more town halls and a resident survey to follow.
- August 2026 — Conservationists raise concerns about the site's neighbor, the Belt Woods Natural Environment Area, as redevelopment planning continues.
The Neighbor Nobody Elected
That last item matters more than it might sound. Belt Woods is an old-growth forest tract just next door to the former theme park, protected since a local banker named Seton Belt willed the land to the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and his parish when he died in 1959, with a ban on large-scale timber harvests written into the terms. Former Bowie mayor Gary Allen helped direct city funds toward preserving the rest of the tract in the 1990s, bringing the protected total to 624 acres.
Allen has said the forest's bird population, including hooded warblers and wood thrushes, depends on the wooded buffer that currently runs along the Six Flags property line. Take that buffer away and, in his words, the birds "are going to get run off."
Janet Gingold of the Prince George's Sierra Club has pushed for a substantial setback between any new construction and the old-growth trees. Patuxent Riverkeeper Frederick Tutman has raised similar concerns about air quality, water quality, and heat around the site once construction starts. A county spokesman has said the team does not intend to build into Belt Woods itself, but a density target built to outperform National Harbor and a conservation buffer built to protect century-old tulip trees are pulling toward different outcomes on the same 515 acres. Nobody has said yet how that gets resolved.
Reading the Wishlist Against the Formula
None of this means Bowie residents won't get some version of what they've asked for. Sports facilities, trails, and green space are all still on TPA's list of possibilities, and Braveboy has talked about giving the county's children "something positive to do" year-round rather than for one season. But the revenue yardstick the county itself has chosen means those amenities are more likely to show up as features wrapped around a dense commercial and entertainment core than as the centerpiece.
It's worth remembering how this compares to other large projects already underway nearby. South Lake, a roughly $1.3 billion project also in Bowie, and Westphalia Town Center, more than 480 acres near Joint Base Andrews, are both already testing what large-scale mixed-use redevelopment looks like in this part of the county. The Six Flags site will be the third and largest test case, and the one with the clearest public benchmark attached to it.
For now, the property sits empty. The Wild One, the more than 100-year-old wooden coaster that predates the park itself, has no confirmed future. Coaster enthusiasts have petitioned for its relocation given its Coaster Landmark status, but no deal has been announced for it, or for the other rides still standing on land that's been sold but not yet touched.
More town halls are coming, and the resident survey is still open. If the National Harbor comparison holds as the county's actual standard, the shape of the next decade on Central Avenue is already more predictable than most of the public conversation around it suggests.
If you're watching this stretch of Bowie for reasons that go beyond curiosity, whether you're weighing what a decade of construction near Central Avenue might mean for a home you already own or one you're thinking about, A. Wise DMV REALTOR® has been tracking Prince George's County long enough to talk through it plainly. Let's Connect.
