Great Wolf Lodge celebrated the groundbreaking Thursday morning of a 500-suite, $250 million resort and indoor water park, the company’s first in Florida and the 21st in North America.
The resort will be built on 20 acres at 3940 City Gate Blvd. S., in Naples. Great Wolf’s investment team purchased the lot between Collier County’s Paradise Sports Complex and the Uline distribution facility for $10 million in April 2021.
Because the project has been in the planning stages for more than three years, the construction management team worked with Suffolk Construction to get ahead of some of the rising costs that come with inflation and supply-chain shortages, said Steve Jacobsen, the development director for Great Wolf Lodge.
“So, for example, if we’ve got three projects that are in different phases of construction, we go out and do a bulk order,” Jacobsen said. “Instead of possibly putting in an order for three elevators, we put in an order for nine. What that does, is it moves you up the chain, and it allows you to hopefully negotiate a better price.”
The project will have 200 to 500 construction workers on site over the next 18 to 24 months, with the lodge expected to open by summer 2024.
The Collier County commission voted 4-1 last summer to approve $15 million in financing for the resort. The money is coming from the East Naples opportunity area zone, with $9 million going toward the Great Wolf Lodge construction costs, and $6 million to be dispersed at $2 million per year for the first three years after the resort opens.
But the bulk of the project’s budget, about 94%, is coming from investors and loans from banks.
“The company is owned by Blackstone and Centerbridge,” Jacobsen said. “And so, we had to go to the market like everybody else and do conventional financing. Going out and doing the consolidation of banks. Shopping it around, trying to get the best rates.”
Collier County commissioner Penny Taylor attended the groundbreaking and said the county funding seemed like the right thing to do given the long-term benefits of having a new, destination attraction in East Naples.
A study commissioned by Collier County showed the resort would generate $150 million in tax revenue and $5 billion in direct spending over the next 30 years.
“This is going to be a wonderful amenity for our community,” Taylor said. “It’s a development that puts us on the map.”
The location next to the sports complex should provide for some synergies, Jacobsen said. Great Wolf Lodge also will donate $250,000, matching an amount from the county, on a public amenity to be determined at a later date.
“They’re about families and kids and sports activities,” Jacobsen said of the sports complex. “We’re about families and kids 2 through 12. We think there’s going to be a lot of crossover between the two of them.”
