Attention, children reading the business section: The Wild Waves and Enchanted Village amusement park will be open this summer and for many into the foreseeable future.

You can stop reading now and let your parents take if from here.

Six Flags Inc. is selling the Federal Way park and six others for $312 million to a privately held Florida firm, PARC Management LLC, which will operate it for "many, many years," and continue to honor already-purchased season passes, said Richard Jett, a vice president at PARC Management.

"All these parks we purchased were local parks before Six Flags purchased them, and that's where the roots are," he said. "We want to build on the local flavor of it."

Six Flags bought the 67-acre amusement park in December 2000 for $19.3 million and has since pumped in more than $24 million in improvements. In 2006, Six Flags announced that it might sell some parks as it sought to reduce more than $2 billion in debt, which sparked speculation about the Federal Way park's future.

The company, which ranks behind Walt Disney Co. as the second-largest U.S. theme park operator, has been struggling with falling attendance even as it added new rides and enhancements at its 27 parks. The company has lost $1 billion since 1999.

PARC Management's affiliate will buy the properties and immediately sell them to CNL Income Properties Inc., an Orlando real estate investment trust. CNL will grant PARC Management a 52-year operating lease on the properties, which includes running and managing the parks.

A group of theme-park industry veterans founded PARC Management in 2002, and the Thursday announcement represents the company's first major acquisition, Jett said. The other parks acquired are Six Flags Darien Lake in Buffalo, N.Y.; Six Flags Elitch Gardens in Denver; Frontier City park and the White Water Bay water park in Oklahoma City; Splashtown in Houston; and Waterworld USA in Concord, Calif.

The sale is expected to be completed in March, according to Six Flags. The agreement, coupled with the June 2006 sale of the land at Houston AstroWorld theme park, will generate $352 million in cash that Six Flags will use to reduce debt, the company said.

Shares of New York-based Six Flags jumped 8.7 percent Thursday to close at $5.90 on the New York Stock Exchange, boosting market value to $557 million.

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