To be built in Cedar Park, which is northwest of Austin.
The park would be built on about 95 acres on RM 1431, about halfway between U.S. 183 and Interstate 35, according to a Cedar Park Economic Development Corp. meeting agenda. The project is expected to cost about $360 million to fully develop, city documents said.
The economic impact of the project is expected to be $2.5 billion over 30 years and could create more than 1,000 jobs , according to an independent study cited in city documents.
“It is a resort destination that we’re announcing – not just a water park,” Schlitterbahn spokesman Jeffrey Siebert said.
The park would be the company’s fifth and its second largest in acreage. Other parks are on South Padre Island and Galveston Island and in Kansas City, Kan.
Siebert said the new water park might include a hotel or other features, but he did not provide details Wednesday.
The park is scheduled to be completed by 2012. This location isn’t that far from the original one in New Braunfels, so I have to wonder if it might cannibalize that site’s business a bit. On the other hand, I know from experience that the New Braunfels park can get really freaking crowded, so maybe a little of that isn’t so bad. In any event, having another Schlitterbahn option is a Good Thing as far as I’m concerned.
As people who are in the “might be cannibalized” group, I expect we’ll continue to visit the original location out of habit and because New Braunfels isn’t that much further than Cedar Park for us. We’re likely to get season passes, though, and the multilocation pass is significantly more expensive than the single-park pass. We looked at it last year so we could do Galveston and decided against.
I do think there’s a market for it, especially for college kids, but that just makes me want to stay with the older stuff even more.