By Eric Engelbert
The Proven Operators Behind Scottsdale's Top Attractions Are Bringing Their Concept to Orange County
If you have been to Scottsdale in the past few years, you may have visited the Arizona Boardwalk at 9500 E. Via de Ventura. It is a nine-attraction entertainment campus anchored by OdySea Aquarium, billed as the largest aquarium in the Southwest, and Butterfly Wonderland, described as the country's largest indoor butterfly conservatory. The complex draws visitors from across the region and has become one of Scottsdale's most popular destinations for families and tourists.
The same company is now planning to bring a version of that concept to Beach Boulevard in Buena Park.
In 2025, the City of Buena Park approved an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement with Boardwalk Enterprises to develop the 9-acre former Movieland Wax Museum site at 7711-7733 Beach Boulevard. The planned development includes an OdySea Aquarium and Butterfly Wonderland, the two anchor attractions that drive traffic at the Scottsdale campus. Plans submitted to the city in May 2025 show approximately 100,000 square feet of entertainment, dining, and retail space on the site, designed by architecture firm Carrier Johnson + Culture.
It is a significant development for Beach Boulevard and for Orange County, and it comes with a backstory that makes it more interesting. This is not the first time someone has tried to build an attraction like this on this exact site. The story of how the land arrived at this point is worth understanding before the first shovel goes in the ground.
The Site: Movieland, the Butterfly Palladium, and a Decade of Waiting
The property at 7711-7733 Beach Boulevard has had a complicated history. For decades it was the home of the Movieland Wax Museum, a Buena Park institution that drew visitors to its collection of celebrity wax figures from the 1960s through the early 2000s. When the wax museum closed, the site became a redevelopment opportunity on one of the most heavily trafficked entertainment corridors in Southern California.
The Butterfly Palladium: 2015-2019
In 2015, Buena Park sold the 9-acre site to developer Rubin Stahl for $2.5 million, well below the $9.1 million the city had paid to acquire it. The discounted price was deliberate: the city wanted to attract a new entertainment anchor to Beach Boulevard and offered favorable terms to make the deal pencil out. Stahl's concept was called the Butterfly Palladium, inspired by what Butterfly Wonderland was doing in Scottsdale, with a large indoor rainforest atrium, a Japanese jellyfish aquarium, a bakery, restaurant, and gift shop.
The project never came close to opening. Construction began but stalled almost immediately. By October 2018, the development deadline mandated in the agreement, the Butterfly Palladium was estimated to be only 10 to 15 percent complete. Stahl had spent approximately $22 million on the project but could not demonstrate secured financing or a credible path to completion. The city rejected an extension request in January 2019 and sued in March 2019 for breach of contract and fraud.
The site sat, a partially built shell surrounded by overgrown vegetation and standing water, on one of the most visible commercial corridors in Orange County, for years while the litigation resolved. The city eventually recovered the property and began the process of finding a development partner who could actually deliver what the Butterfly Palladium was supposed to be.
Why This Time Is Different
The critical distinction between the Butterfly Palladium and the current Buena Park Boardwalk proposal is operator credibility. Rubin Stahl was a developer who wanted to build something similar to what already existed in Scottsdale. Boardwalk Enterprises is, or is directly affiliated with, the entity that actually operates those attractions in Scottsdale today.
OdySea Aquarium opened in Scottsdale in 2016 and has operated continuously as one of the largest aquariums in the American Southwest. Butterfly Wonderland opened at the same campus and has operated as the country's largest indoor butterfly conservatory. Arizona Boardwalk, the umbrella campus, now operates nine attractions, multiple dining outlets, and shops. The company has real operating history, real ticket revenue, and a proven concept. This is not a developer pitching a vision. It is an operator proposing to replicate what it already runs successfully in another market.
What Is Planned for the Buena Park Site
The development plan submitted to Buena Park city staff in May 2025 shows the following program for the 9-acre site:
OdySea Aquarium
The aquarium forms the primary anchor on the Beach Boulevard corner. In Scottsdale, OdySea Aquarium spans hundreds of thousands of square feet and features sharks, penguins, sea otters, and the only rotating aquarium experience in the United States, where guests move on a conveyor system through the aquatic environment rather than walking past fixed tanks. The Buena Park version will be adapted to the site but is expected to carry the same brand and core experience. The plans show the aquarium occupying the main corner position with direct frontage on Beach Boulevard.
Butterfly Wonderland
Butterfly Wonderland in Scottsdale is described as the country's largest indoor butterfly conservatory, featuring thousands of live butterflies in a large enclosed rainforest atrium environment. The Buena Park plans show a dedicated Butterfly Wonderland building on the site, visible from Beach Boulevard and positioned alongside the aquarium as the second major anchor of the campus. The appeal of this attraction in an entertainment corridor context is its distinct sensory environment: quiet, immersive, and fundamentally different from what any theme park on Beach Boulevard offers.
Scale and Parking
The current plans show the following program:
- 86,000 square feet of museum and public assembly space (aquarium and butterfly conservatory combined)
- 10,000 square feet of retail
- 4,000 square feet of restaurant space
- 100,000 square feet total leasable area
- 348 parking spaces required (208 on-site, 212 from adjacent Edison lot for overflow)
- EV charging infrastructure required for 20 percent of spaces under California building code
The architect is Carrier Johnson + Culture, a firm based in San Diego with experience in mixed-use and entertainment projects. The ENA approved in 2025 sets the framework for Boardwalk Enterprises and the city to negotiate a formal development agreement before entitlement applications are filed.
Where This Site Sits on Beach Boulevard
The Buena Park Boardwalk site at 7711-7733 Beach Boulevard is positioned within the city's designated Entertainment Zone, the stretch of Beach that includes Knott's Berry Farm, Medieval Times, Pirates Dinner Theatre, and Soak City. Porto's Bakery and Rock and Brews are immediately nearby. The location is one of the most visible commercial addresses in Orange County, with Beach Boulevard carrying several hundred thousand vehicles per week through the corridor.
For the entertainment zone to function as a coherent destination, it benefits from attractions that serve different demographics, different price points, and different moods. Knott's Berry Farm is a full-day, high-energy theme park. Medieval Times is dinner and a tournament. An aquarium and butterfly conservatory fit a different niche entirely: shorter-duration, calmer, educational, and accessible to the same families who visit the other venues but looking for something that does not require six hours and $200 per person to enjoy.
The Boardwalk would also anchor the northern or central portion of the entertainment zone in a way that currently lacks a major attraction. If you are driving down Beach Boulevard from the north, Knott's is near the center of the corridor. The Movieland/Boardwalk site is slightly further north, in a position to intercept visitors before they reach Knott's and give them a reason to stop rather than drive through.
What the Boardwalk Means for the New Residential Neighborhood Going Up Next Door
The Buena Park Boardwalk site is within the same corridor as The Village at Buena Park, the $650 million development at the mall site where 1,302 new apartments and townhomes are rising on the former Sears footprint. The Amway campus redevelopment at 5600 Beach Boulevard, adding 281 more homes, is also nearby. Collectively, the Beach Boulevard corridor is adding several thousand new residents who will live within walking distance of the entertainment zone, and those residents will be looking for nearby places to go on weekday evenings and weekend afternoons.
An aquarium is a repeatable destination in a way that a theme park is not. You do not visit OdySea in Scottsdale once and consider it finished. Families with aquarium memberships visit multiple times per year. The business model for a venue like OdySea depends on annual membership revenue, repeat visits, and dining and retail spending across multiple trips, not a single high-ticket annual experience. For residents who live one to two miles away, that repeat-visit model means the Boardwalk becomes a neighborhood amenity rather than a tourist draw, the same way a good community gym or farmers market becomes part of the rhythm of the week.
From a real estate standpoint, the cumulative effect of the Village, the Amway site, the Boardwalk, and the existing entertainment corridor is a neighborhood with genuine character: thousands of new residents, walkable dining and retail, an expanding theme park, and now an aquarium and butterfly conservatory with national brand recognition. That combination commands a rental and purchase premium that the individual pieces, added up separately, would not generate on their own.
Timeline and What Happens Next
The Buena Park Boardwalk is in the Exclusive Negotiating Agreement stage as of mid-2026. An ENA is not an entitlement, a building permit, or a development agreement. It means the city and Boardwalk Enterprises have agreed to negotiate exclusively with each other for a set period to work out the terms of a formal development deal. No construction can start until a development agreement is approved, a conditional use permit or site plan is granted, and a building permit is issued. Each of those steps takes time.
What the ENA does signal is that the city has selected its partner and believes the project is viable. Given the site's history with the Butterfly Palladium, Buena Park has incentive to be careful about who it partners with and to structure any agreement with performance milestones. The fact that Boardwalk Enterprises operates functioning versions of both anchor attractions in Scottsdale substantially reduces the risk that this project ends the way the Butterfly Palladium did.
A realistic timeline given the ENA approval in 2025 and the typical pace of California entitlement processes: construction could begin in the 2027 to 2028 range with opening in the 2028 to 2030 window. That timeline would put the Boardwalk opening in alignment with or shortly after the first residents begin moving into The Village, creating the kind of opening-day neighborhood infrastructure that makes a new community feel complete rather than like a construction zone.
Key Dates and Numbers
| Project / Milestone | Date / Figure |
|---|---|
| Former Movieland Wax Museum site acquired by city | $9.1 million purchase price |
| City sells site to Butterfly Palladium developer Rubin Stahl | 2015 ($2.5 million) |
| Butterfly Palladium construction deadline (missed) | October 4, 2018 |
| City sues developer for breach of contract and fraud | March 2019 |
| Developer spent on Butterfly Palladium before failure | ~$22 million |
| ENA approved with Boardwalk Enterprises (OdySea / Butterfly Wonderland) | 2025 |
| Site area | ~9 acres (7711-7733 Beach Blvd) |
| Total planned building area | 100,000 SF |
| Museum / entertainment space (aquarium + butterfly conservatory) | 86,000 SF |
| Retail + restaurant space | 14,000 SF |
| Architect | Carrier Johnson + Culture |
| Estimated construction start (subject to entitlement) | 2027-2028 |
The Boardwalk is one part of a larger transformation underway along Beach Boulevard. The full picture is on the Buena Park development overview page and the New Developments in Orange County page.
