KENNEWICK -- Tri-Citians are one step closer to slipping down water slides on hot summer days.
Two local businessmen signed a purchase agreement Friday for eight acres in Kennewick where Shark Reef Water Park is scheduled to open in the summer of 2011.
Mike Hillman of Kennewick and Dave Schlotthauer of Pasco secured financial backing for the $5 million first phase of Shark Reef. It will be built in the Southridge area along Highway 395, south of Kadlec's Kennewick Primary Care and north of the Washington State Patrol office.
The brothers-in-law, who own Kennewick's Columbia Basin Satellite, are working with civic and hydrologic engineers and an architect on the site plan. They hope to apply for building permits in the next three weeks, Schlotthauer said.
He said they are hiring local companies, except for the slide design work because there isn't a local water slide specialist.
The water park's first phase is expected to feature a bowl slide, three inner tube slides, three speed slides, multi-lane mat races, a large children's area with slides and water guns, a lazy river, a wave channel and other features.
The children's area will be surrounded by the lazy river and accessible by bridge, Schlotthauer said.
The park will begin hiring employees in about a year, Schlotthauer said. It will have about 50 to 60 seasonal employees and fewer than 10 year-round.
Kennewick-based Miranda Management & Construction, which is handling the South Ridge Village
development and sold the eight acres for the park, is pleased to add Shark Reef to the shopping, retail and wine village already planned for Southridge, said Whitney Maldonado, company real estate broker.
"It will really be a nice complement to everything that we have planned here," she said.
Shark Reef will break ground in November, so the park will be finished near the expected May 2011 opening date. If the developers broke ground in summer, the park would be finished in February, with several months of no income before the Memorial Day weekend opening, Schlotthauer said.
Their plans include a $10 million second phase to open the summer of 2013 that will expand the park to 15 acres. Schlotthauer said they will lease the seven acres where the second phase is planned with an option to buy.
Schlotthauer said he and Hillman have heard concerns that Shark Reef would affect the mountain biking trails near the Washington State Patrol offices. However, only one infrequently used trail is on the south edge of the property, he said.
Development in Southridge is not expected to affect bicyclists' ability to use the trails, he said.
Across the river, Jim Hale of Orlando, Fla., has applied for a special permit to build Bahama Bay Water Park in Pasco.
The Pasco Planning Commission recently held a public hearing on the permit for the west Pasco park, and will make a recommendation Feb. 18 to the city council.
Hale told the commission he's still working on the financing for his park.
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Plans for water parks in Tri-Cities delayed
Plans for water parks in Tri-Cities delayed
Plans to have a water park open in the Southridge area of Kennewick by next summer are on ice.
And a second proposed park in Pasco is also treading water.
Mike Hillman, owner of Columbia Basin Satellite, said his proposed 10-acre Shark Reef project didn't get the financing package he needed.
Construction begins in Richland on new apartments
Construction begins in Richland on new apartments
RICHLAND — Owners of an almost $19 million apartment complex under construction in Richland are confident they will be able to fill their 180 units.
Crews began moving dirt this week at the future site of the River Trails Apartments, 2513 Duportail St.
The Tri-Cities is a time-proven apartment market, said Don Purdy of West Richland, who has partnered with Stephen MacKay from Western Washington on the project.
Hanford Reach Center might break ground this fall
Hanford Reach Center might break ground this fall
COLUMBIA PARK -- The first dirt soon could be turned for construction of a local science and history museum nine years in development.
Officials involved with the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center tentatively have scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony for Oct. 5, conditioned on getting final approval from the state Department of Transportation.
The groundbreaking would be for the first phase of the project, which involves extending water and sewer lines, building a driveway that eventually will become part of Columbia Park Trail, and getting the property in the west end of Columbia Park ready for the eventual construction of the museum itself.
Reach Center might break ground this fall
Reach Center might break ground this fall
The first dirt soon could be turned for construction of a local science and history museum nine years in development.
Officials involved with the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center tentatively have scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony for Oct. 5, conditioned on getting final approval from the state Department of Transportation.
The groundbreaking would be for the first phase of the project, which involves extending water and sewer lines, building a driveway that eventually will become part of Columbia Park Trail, and getting the property in the west end of Columbia Park ready for the eventual construction of the museum itself.
Quad-cities water right pact reached
Quad-cities water right pact reached
State officials and the Tri-Cities and West Richland have reached an agreement on getting Pasco the water it needs now and the water the other cities will need in the future.
Officials say the new pact will put to rest a decade of disputes over the
so-called quad-cities water right from the Columbia River.
The water rights from the Lake Roosevelt Incremental Release Program will be noninterruptible, which means that even when a drought is declared, the cities can continue to use that water, said Joye Redfield-Wilder, communication manager for the Department of Ecology in Yakima.
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