Water park, resort, hotel, conference center planned in east Loveland

LOVELAND — The city of Loveland has been asked to assist with construction of off-site roads to enable a proposed water park resort to be built in east Loveland off Byrd Drive, the same street that will be home to an Amazon fulfillment center.

The City Council met in executive session Tuesday night to consider the water park. While no formal action was taken once the executive session was over, Water Valley developer Martin Lind was comfortable enough with the project to confirm that he is the developer behind the project. He is in negotiation with the city over incentives to make the project work.

“Water Valley company is ecstatic to introduce the Rocky Mountain Grand Resort and Conference Center. We are beyond excited for this region to get this state-of-the-art project,” Lind said in an email to BizWest.

He said the resort will be “best in class facilities, best in class operators, and best in class location.” 

He said he and the community have “sacrificed much these last seven years with the abandoned state led RTA [Regional Tourism Authority]. That effort and learning curve has brought us to today. There is work yet to do with Loveland on entitlement and incentives but provided those come to favorable conclusions it will be a great day for Loveland, and because of this location, all of NOCO,” Lind said.

Kelly Jones, economic development director for the city, said that the council was “excited about the concept” and gave her direction to begin the due diligence on the project.

Lind said that the off-site street improvements will also support the Amazon fulfillment center, the Hines construction now underway on Byrd, the Axis 25 mixed-use industrial buildings and the expanded Northern Colorado Regional Airport terminal when that is built.

Lind said he has also requested sales tax and lodging tax share-backs to help finance the project. He said those types of incentives were considered for the previous RTA water park that wasn’t built.

Lind said PCL Construction Inc. will be the contractor of the project. PCL, with U.S. headquarters in Denver, lists Disney, Universal Studios and Seaworld among its clients.

“As a local builder and resident who has built waterpark resorts and conference centers across North America, we are excited to be leading the design-build efforts in partnership with the Water Valley Co. for this world class community amenity.  The team has put months of effort into this project to date, and we look forward to getting this project built for the community,” Jeff Darnell, director of PCL Construction, said in a written statement.

As BizWest previously reported, proposed is a water-park resort with a hotel of up to 400 rooms and a conference center on 25 acres west of the Budweiser Events Center and east of the Northern Colorado Regional Airport on the west side of Interstate 25. 

Lind has had an interest in establishing a water park and initially participated in an effort to create a regional tourism project with state funding. That failed to deliver a development last fall.

Information provided today said plans call for a resort that can serve as either a destination for travelers or as a “hub and spoke” location that travelers can use as a base for other tourism activities in the region. 

The plan calls for 390 rooms and suites in the hotel, to be operated by American Resort Management, that would be built at the resort and a 69,000-square-foot conference center. The waterpark feature will be 85,000 square feet and include 11 slides as well as cabanas, party rooms, food court and gift shop, the developer said. A 40,000-square-foot outdoor courtyard recreation area with reflecting pond is proposed, along with a 10,000-square-foot family entertainment center.

Multiple restaurants, including a rooftop restaurant, a sports bar, arcade, spa, fitness center and other features are included, he said.

A promotional video about the project said that the resort would generate more than 500 jobs.

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