The request for information about the possibility of a new Las Vegas water park is up there with queries about New Year's and July 4th fireworks in the most-requested echelons of QoD FAQs. Here's the latest.
For new visitors to Las Vegas or those too young to remember, Wet 'n Wild was a 27-acre water amusement park that opened next to the Sahara in May 1985. Although the park was part of the abortive attempt to turn Las Vegas into a family destination, Wet 'n Wild found unexpected success by appealing to the rapidly growing locals market as a great place to take the kids during the long sweltering summer months, and at its peak attracted half a million customers a year. It featured something for everyone, from the gentle Lazy River to the heart-stopping Der Stuka high-rise water slide, famously enjoyed by Shaquille O’Neal, who hosted Playboy parties at the venue. Other famous fans included the Sultan of Brunei, who once paid $50,000 to enjoy the facilities privately for a few hours -- with a few dozen close female friends.
In spite of the theme park's popularity, however, the value of the prime piece of real estate that it occupied was eventually its undoing, as Las Vegas increasingly shifted away from the family-friendly experiment and owners Palace Entertainment, which operates a bunch of other water parks around the country, eventually sold.
Although new owner Archon's Sahara Las Vegas Corp. subsidiary signed a lease extension in May 2003 that would have kept the park in place for another decade, a mere seven months later it reversed course and announced that it would be demolishing the attraction in order to build a 3,250-room hotel-casino and observation wheel on the site. (The whole history of Ferris/observation wheel projects in Las Vegas and their non-happening is a saga in itself that's been addressed in this column on more than one occasion -- see QoDs 5/12/05 and 4/8/06 -- but that's a story to revisit another day.)
Back to Wet 'n Wild and in spite of Archon's announcement, the park opened for business as usual on April 24, 2004, and one month later added a new attraction, the Dragon's Den slide. It turned out that the ride's first season would be its last, however, and in early August the scheduled closure of the park was confirmed for the end of September of that year, once its 20th season had concluded.
A slightly emotional-sounding Palace Entertainment insisted it was committed to the Las Vegas market and repeatedly stated its intention to build another Las Vegas water park, but nothing ever happened.
Fast forward a couple of years and a new player emerged on the Vegas water-park scene, namely Las Vegas WET LLC, a k a Wet Holdings, Inc. This company has mind-bogglingly ambitious plans for the "largest indoor water park in North America" and "roughly 25 acres of outdoor attractions in a variety of themed 'lands.'" Attractions would include everything from a snow dome with indoor skiing and snowboarding to a wave pool that guests can surf on, plus a casino, an 18,000-seat sports arena, multiple hotels, and a variety of entertainment and retail complexes. And it plans to be self-sufficient energy-wise by generating its own electricity using fuel cells and microturbines.
For more information about the whole concept, visit www.lasvegaswet.com, which includes a candid account of some of the challenges the project has faced since it was first announced in 2005. Back then, they were hoping to open in "late 2009 or early 2010," but the Web site now posits a 2011 debut, so we contacted our former contact there to see what the latest news was. Here's his response.
"To answer your questions, we have identified the property and have reached a price with the owner. However, the financial crunch that has been plaguing the country has slowed us down a bit. We anticipate having the land under contract in the third quarter and are still
