BUENA PARK, Calif.—The City of Buena Park’s goal to pump up its sagging entertainment core—known mostly for Knott’s Berry Farm—continues to see delays, as a long-planned new theme park where kids and adults alike could frolic alongside butterflies remains stalled in legal limbo.
The story starts when city officials toured a “Butterfly Pavilion” in Arizona and were so enamored with it, they decided they needed one of their own.
They sold their aging Movieland Wax Museum and its land for $2.45 million to Rubin Stahl, a world-renowned developer of shopping centers and entertainment attractions.
Stahl went on to form a separate company to develop the land and hired a construction company called Outside the Lines to build the attraction.
The construction company broke ground in 2016 and everyone planned for a 2018 opening date.
But nothing has gone as planned.
Today, Stahl’s and the city’s vision—a 17,500 square foot enclosed rainforest filled with butterflies, hummingbirds, and a jellyfish-filled aquarium—sits partially completed as dust flies instead of butterflies and torn sandbags litter the area.
But according to court filings, Stahl’s development team was met with the ongoing challenges of trespassing, illegal dumping, and financial setbacks that slowed construction and prevented deadlines from being met.
When the developer asked for a 13-month extension on July 30, 2018, to complete the project, the city denied it according to filings.
Upon the drafted project completion date that was applied in the Development Agreement on October 18, 2018, Stahl and his team were given a 30-day extension to complete the project after the date was not met.
“Butterfly’s progress on the Project continued through 2017 and 2018—initial structural components and concrete pours were completed, and deposits of hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid to architects and builders of the atrium and aquarium in Belgium and Japan,” court documents of Stahl’s attorney’s opposition of Buena Park’s special motion to strike cross-complainants said on July 10, 2020.
“The building permit for the Project was issued on April 18, 2017, which would have called for completion of construction by October 18, 2018, but providing for unlimited extensions to accommodate delays in this complicated and ambitious Project.”
But at this point in the construction process, Butterfly Pavilion LLC had invested over $15 million.
Stahl however wanted $22 million, not just for the land and its appreciation, but for the in-progress pavilion, demolition of the former Movieland Wax Museum, concrete foundations, and the beginning of several buildings.
As lawsuits were issued by both parties, the complications increased until Stahl’s death on Oct. 20, 2020.
While the issue is tied up in court, ecologists say they can’t wait, as such a local attraction will educate children and adults alike on butterfly ecology and the environment.
“Several [Butterfly Pavilions] serve as a launching pad for citizen community science monitoring and that has a huge impact on being able to track how butterflies are responding to environmental change,” Ecologist and Associate Georgetown University Professor Leslie Ries told The Epoch Times.
“They are very popular as far as I know.”
The pavilion, if and when it is completed and finally opens, is estimated to bring in nearly 1 million new visitors to Buena Park per year.
