Fort Lauderdale’s City Commission has approved Premier Parks LLC as the successful bidder to lease and develop a 64 acres site including the Lockhart Stadium.
Premier Parks will develop the land around the stadium into a $60 million water park (Wet ‘n’ Wild Fort Lauderdale) reports South Florida Business Journal. The plans will include renovating the stadium in an attempt to attract more events.
Premier Parks owns the nearby Rapids Water Park in West Palm Beach – which is the nearest large-scale waterpark.
The bid package by Premier Parks states that the project would have an annual economic impact of $50 million, create 75 to 100 full-time jobs, and support 800 to 1,000 seasonal employees.
Premier Parks would work with Aquatic Development Group – acting as the designer – and Proslide – as the provider of the water rides. ProSlide procured all of the slides for the new Volcano Bay Water Park in Orlando. Premier Parks would also partner with Cartaya & Associates Architects, and planning firm Chen Moore and Associates.
The water park will contain a tidal river, an adventure river with waterfalls and geysers and numerous waterslides. Among the slides will be Giant Mammoth River Twin Slides, a Super Loop and an Octopus Racer.
There will also be mini wave pools and slides for guests under seven in an area called Wet ‘n’ Wild Junior.
Premier Parks proposed a 50-year lease with a base rent that would be the greater of $825,000 a year or 4 percent of gross revenue. It estimated the annual operating expenses would exceed $30 million.
Construction would take 12 to 15 months and create 400 to 500 jobs.
Premier Parks is a New-Jersey based company led by the former CEO of Six Flags, Kieran Burke. It owns and operates 15 theme and water parks in North America – including Wet ‘n’ Wild Toronto.
Image Courtesy of Rapids Water Park via Facebook
https://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2017/08/23/city-selects-firm-to-build-60m-wet-n-wild-fort.html
