Among the many factors that impact the feasibility of the project are site conditions, development and construction costs, available audience, projected attendance and annual revenue and expense. These factors are summarized here in preliminary terms with more detailed information to come as the planning process evolves.

• The Western of Alabama attraction can succeed programmatically, organizationally, and educationally by achieving a critical mass of audience experiences to clear two hurdles: (1) provide and aggressively market enough ongoing programming, multimedia, and excursion-related ventures, both for adult and school audiences, to attract consistent repeat visitation from the Montgomery area’s residential markets, and (2) offer and aggressively market an engaging and entertaining set of experiences that will make the Alabama Railpark a premier Montgomery destination for out-of-town visitors.
  
  
• The proposed Railpark concept, with earned revenue centers and visitor services in food, beverage, retail, the AmeriCold large-format theater, a frequent and regular rail excursion schedule, the interpretive offerings of the museum components, and the historic site integrating all of the pieces, would constitute a critical mass of engaging experiences to make the Railpark a Montgomery cultural resource and a destination. The concept plan is a careful balance of cultural offerings that, in terms of marketing identity, can add up to more than the sum of its individual parts.
  
  
• A variety of market factors simultaneously favor and challenge the Alabama Railpark Project:
  • Approx. 226,000 residents within a 15-minute drive of the site.
  • Another 384,000 residents within 15 to 60 minutes of the site.
  • A healthy average household income for residents in the immediate market area, but far less disposable income in the 30 and 60 minute market areas.
  • Growing tourism numbers and improving visitor conditions in Montgomery.
    
    
• The Montgomery region shows particularly strong demographics for school-age children, with nearly 130,000 children between 5 and 19 years old projected within a 60 minute drive of the Railpark by 2005. Projections also show a population of over 40,000 children under age 5 by year 2005 within the 60 minute drive-time market.
  
  
• ERA’s analysis of the Montgomery markets, case studies of leading rail-themed attractions in other markets, and patterns in the performance of cultural institutions in and around Montgomery set a reasonable target scenario for a fully-developed (Phase I) and marketed Railpark attraction of 110,000 to 130,000 paid visitors in a stabilized operating year, including all school groups and ticketed admissions. Keys to achieving this admissions level would be: (1) aggressive marketing of Western of Alabama both as a community resource and a destination, (2) operating hours that extend into the evenings and weekends and accordant activity in the retail components of the project, (3) realization of each of the Railpark concept components or their equivalents, and (4) high quality programming, both travelling from other cultural institutions and generated by the Railpark itself, to refresh the visitor experience continually.

Clearly, implementation of the project as envisioned mandates a public-private partnership organized in such a way that protects the not-for-profit charter of OAR and creates no barriers to public funding by grant or tax-free contribution, while facilitating private investment in retail, lodging, excursion operation and other aspects of the commercial components of the project. Specifics of such strategies will be forthcoming in the latter stages of Master Planning.

• The marketing image direction of the Alabama Railpark attraction will travel on two vectors: (1) the one-stop shopping aspect of the museum experience at the Railpark, with various diverse cultural experiences such as large-format film, rail excursions, and multimedia, giving visitors to the Railpark a deeper and richer experience through the synergy of the attractions than would be possible from each individual component (the "It’s all here in one place" message), and (2) the community resource side of the Railpark, with regular programming for locally and regionally-based families, individuals, and organizations seeking knowledge about an important aspect of Montgomery’s heritage (the "Community gathering place" message)
  
  
• The Railpark concept plan represents the combination of attractions needed to achieve the attendance levels and profile assumed in this analysis. Phasing opportunities do exist, but it is important to caution that the projections here are based on assumptions about full operation of the Phase I program components. We do believe that a smaller Alabama Railpark with a subset of the basic attraction components could function systematically, but museum planning experience shows that project scale and attendance cannot be expected to follow in a simple proportional or linear relationship. The combination of museum operations in this plan is designed to optimize marketing, programming, and financial sustainability.
  
  
• The Railpark will need to adopt a strong earned-revenue stance, including marketing, admissions, and retail and food and beverage in order to sustain operations from year-to-year.