Last week MoreThanTheCurve.com attended the ground breaking of the LEGOLAND Discovery Center at the Plymouth Meeting Mall. During the remarks from various representatives of the store and mall, Plymouth Township officials were thanked for working with the various groups to help bring LEGOLAND Discovery Center to the mall. While we do not regularly attend public meetings in Plymouth Township, we do read the agendas and minutes each month. We hadn’t remembered, and didn’t find in a search of the agendas and minutes, any mention of LEGOLAND, so we were curious as to what help was provided.

We emailed Township Manager Karen Weiss and inquired how the township had helped. What we learned was that it involved amending the Amusement Tax, which will help with the affordability of tickets. Here is the response from Weiss:

Plymouth Council adopted an amendment to the amusement tax exempting any amusement intended for children, and their parents, guardians, teachers, educational supervisors, family members or friends accompanying the children, for all parties obligated to pay the Amusement Tax (not just Legoland), where the admission is less than $100. It was argued to Council that the encouragement of this type of development would have a long term tax benefit to the Township. This means that visitors to Legoland will not have to pay an amusement tax on their admission price.

The amusement tax is 10 percent. We don’t know the entry prices for LEGOLAND Discovery Center at the mall yet, so we looked at Boston and tickets are basically $15.00 to $30.00 depending on a few factors. So amending the tax saves those wanting to visit LEGOLAND Discovery Center anywhere from $1.50 to $3.00 per ticket.