Six Flags New Orleans drowned in Katrina and sat abandoned for 19 years

The park opened as Jazzland on 20 May 2000, built with a $25.3 million federal HUD loan; when the original operator went bankrupt, the City of New Orleans became liable for the $24.4 million outstanding. Attendance fell from 1.1 million in 2000 to roughly 570,000 in 2001. Six Flags bought the lease for $22 million in March 2002, spent over $20 million on upgrades and reopened it as Six Flags New Orleans in April 2003.

The park last operated on 21 August 2005, eight days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Floodwater covered the site for over a month, and about 80 percent of the attractions were destroyed by the long immersion; Six Flags valued the destroyed assets at $32.5 million. On 1 July 2006 the company declared the park an effective total loss and said it would not rebuild. It had collected $11.5 million of insurance and sued in January 2007 for a further $17.5 million.

Six Flags' own Chapter 11 bankruptcy ended the lease in 2009 and the site reverted to the city's Industrial Development Board. For 19 years every redevelopment plan failed — an amusement park, Nickelodeon Universe, a $40 million outlet mall, a $100 million festival park — until demolition began in November 2024 and the site was cleared by March 2026, with Bayou Phoenix signed to redevelop it.