Myrtlebeachonline.com is reporting:

Hard Rock Park is for sale. The 55-acre, $400 million theme park, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September, wants to sell itself by the end of 2008 and has asked a judge to allow it to make severance payments of almost a quarter of a million dollars to its top executives, according to court papers filed this week. Creditors have until Nov. 13 to file objections, and a judge is set to rule on the issue on Nov. 20, according to court papers.

The park has asked a judge to allow it to pay its three top executives at least $270,000, not including pay for unused vacation days. The three executives are Steven Goodwin, chief executive officer; Jon Binkowski, chief creative officer; and Felix Mussenden, chief operating officer.

The court filing states: "Given that the debtors have recently determined that they will be engaging in a sale process to sell all, or substantially all, of the debtors’ assets to a third-party purchaser by the end of calendar year 2008, certain of the debtors’ management employees have understandably expressed concern regarding their future employment. The contractual severance payments, and indeed the severance program generally, are intended to mitigate these concerns and prevent employee attrition during this critical period in the debtors’ bankruptcy cases. The loss of senior management at this stage in the debtors’ bankruptcy cases would have an adverse effect on the debtors’ ability to maximize the value of their estates, especially considering the abbreviated timeframe under which the sale must proceed. Any disruption in the continuity of management would result in an inevitable and harmful delay stemming from the necessity of familiarizing new personnel with the debtors’ operations and these proceedings."

Read more here.