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Quorum Architects’ Arthur Calcaterra braves an encounter with a promotional photo from the Dino Off-Road Adventure at Six Flags Over Texas. (Courtesy photo | Quorum Architects)
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It wasn’t a call from an eccentric billionaire entrepreneur that sent a Fort Worth architecture firm on a quest to build a dinosaur amusement park ride, but it certainly gave a couple of architects a taste of Jurassic adventure. 

Fort Worth’s Quorum Architects has done plenty of work over the past decade for Six Flags Over Texas, but one project that was completed in June saw the firm dealing with life-size dinosaurs and reimagining a classic ride. 

The challenge was to take Six Flag Over Texas’ second-oldest attraction, the classic Chaparral Antique Cars and give it a new theme called the Dino Off-Road Adventure. The course was changed into a dinosaur-themed ride with new, classic safari vehicles, new ride movements and 15 life-size dinosaur animatronics. The scenery along the quarter-mile track has been enhanced with water features and landscaping.

“It’s one of the great things we get to do,” said Arthur Calcaterra, director of retail design for the 32-year-old firm. “We love seeing these big ideas they bring to us and then help bring them to reality.”

Lyndsey Howarth, who joined Quorum after graduating from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2021, hadn’t expected to be working with a life-size Tyrannosaurus rex — though she was a little bit of a dinosaur fan growing up. 

“It was cool looking at all the computer-aided design drawings and seeing a dinosaur there,” she said. 

Howarth has already worked on several projects for Six Flags, including the 

first micro market concept at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey — a collaboration between The Coca-Cola Co., Amazon and Six Flags. The new store offers frictionless shopping experience using Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology.

“With Six Flags, there are so many unique opportunities for design and innovation,” said Howarth. “It adds an extra level of excitement and anticipation when I see the joy these projects spark in others.”

Quorum’s Six Flags relationship goes back several years and began with Calcaterra. He worked at the park during his high school and college years and reconnected with a former supervisor who hired the firm to help design the expanded children’s area — Bugs Bunny Boomtown. The largest project that Quorum has tackled at Six Flags Over Texas was the Justice League: Battle for Metropolis, which involved a building that housed a ride, a gift shop and a restaurant.

In July, Six Flags, which had been based in Arlington, merged with Cedar Fair in an $8 billion deal that created the largest amusement park operator in the country. That saw the company’s corporate headquarters shift to Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Following the merger, the company announced several investments in parks around the country. One of those announced was for Hurricane Harbor in Arlington, which had opened in 1983 as Wet ’n Wild. Hurricane Harbor will see some extensive renovations, including the addition of a coastal-themed area anchored by a 58,000-square-foot, multilevel interactive kids play structure with 110 water features, seven water slides and a 1,000-gallon Texas-sized tipping water bucket. 

An additional seven-water-slide complex will include a mini-tornado water slide and mini wave slide. There will also be a variety of other features, including a splash pad. 

Calcaterra said Quorum will be doing work on the Hurricane Harbor improvements. 

“We’ve got a great relationship with Six Flags,” he said. 

Working with the amusement park is a great icebreaker when speaking with high school and college students who are interested in architecture, Calcaterra said. 

“They may not know a lot of the companies we say we work with, but Six Flags, and you can see them perk up,” he said. “They know Six Flags.” Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.