| Lodge living coming
to Williamsburg
Virginia Business
February 2004
When
the Great Wolf Lodge resort opens near Williamsburg
in spring 2005, it will have an enticing lure for harried
parents: the promise that bad weather won’t spoil
precious family vacation time.
Inside the $50 million, 70,000-square-foot indoor water
park – being built on 35 acres in York County
next to Interstate 64 – it will always be 84 degrees.
Guests staying in its 301 suites will be able to try
out the seven waterslides, a tree house four stories
up, a giant wave pool or any of the 60 “guest-activated
water effects” scattered about.
The market of time-squeezed families is what the Madison,
Wis.-based Great Lakes Companies is after. The company
broke ground on the Williamsburg project in December;
it opened two similar lodges, in Michigan and Kansas,
last year and is planning another in the Poconos Mountains
of Pennsylvania. It also owns land next to the water
park and is planning a condominium and timeshare project
there called Great Wolf Vacations.
Most of the country’s indoor water parks are in
northern states where cold weather creates the demand.
The company chose Williamsburg because it’s already
a destination spot for vacationing families, says Eric
Lund, vice president of sales and marketing for Great
Lakes. Besides Colonial Williamsburg, the region has
Water Country USA and Busch Gardens Williamsburg, along
with tons of shopping and historic attractions nearby
such as the Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Battlefield.
The new attraction will generate hundreds of jobs and
should help ease the impact of losses at Colonial Williamsburg,
which had to lay off hundreds of workers last year amid
dropping attendance. Ticket sales in 2002 fell to the
lowest level in four decades and a further drop was
expected for 2003.
Virginia
Business - February 2004
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