Dorney Park Seeks Changes to Build Parking Lot, Replace High Rides

Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom is seeking zoning changes that would allow it to build a parking lot "at least initially" on the of land in South Whitehall that it is buying from Lehigh County.

The park also is seeking changes to a township ordinance that would allow it to replace the old Laser ride with one that is .

Township commissioners at their meeting Wednesday night agreed to pass the requests on to the South Whitehall Planning Commission for review. Should the planners recommend the changes, the commissioners would hold public hearings on the matters.

Attorney Joseph Bubba, who represented Dorney, told the commissioners that Dorney is requesting the new land be rezoned to commercial recreation from medium- and high-density residential so that it can build a parking area. 

The park's petition said the property would be used as a parking area "at least initially" but did not indicate long-range plans.

By rezoning the land to permit a centralized parking area, the park would be able to reduce or eliminate customer parking next to residential areas, the petition says. The new lot would connect to Dorney's other parking areas, with much of the traffic using existing internal roads to enter the property.

Though park officials did not indicate their long-range plans, the land purchase "opens a lot of options to us," Dorney General Manager Jason McClure told commissioners.

Bubba said the park eventually will have more rides, which would require more parking.

The land is next to the park, at the southwest intersection of Hillview and Dorney Park roads near Interstate 78 and Route 222. Once it had been designated as the site of a Korean War Memorial but that never came to fruition there. Dorney is on track to buy the land for $2.75 million.

"You might remember that we tried to buy this [land] twice before," Bubba told the commissioners.

In another matter, Dorney is seeking a change to a township ordinance that would allow it to replace the old Laser, which was 98 feet high, with a 138-foot-high inverted .

The ordinance currently allows Dorney to replace any of its eight existing high rides and limits any additional high rides to three.

However, if a ride is being replaced, the new ride cannot be any higher than the old one under the ordinance. Bubba said that restriction could ultimately reduce the total number of high rides that Dorney would be allowed to have at the park.