With pomp, circumstance and an appearance from retired NFL player Rob Gronkowski, Great Wolf Lodge celebrated both its grand opening and its economic impact for Collier County.
Great Wolf Lodge had a soft launch, opening Sept. 18, before officially unveiling its 92,000-square-foot indoor water park Nov. 14 with Gronkowski on hand, having test-ridden down all 12 waterslides on a raft with several children.
“I felt like a big kid,” said Gronkowski, who won four Super Bowl rings — three with the New England Patriots and one with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. His mother lives in Lee County.
“I mean, I am a big kid, you know, deep down,” Gronkowski said. “So, it just perfectly fit me. The kids were so great. We had the Make-a-Wish kids here, and their families, and they were just having such a good time just going down all the slides.”
Great Wolf Lodge pledged $60,000 — $5,000 per slide — to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Great Wolf Lodge CEO John Murphy thanked Collier County commissioners for their support, noting they granted $15 million in economic incentives to get the project going.
“First of all, this is a $250 million development,” Murphy said. “So, our partners at Blackstone and Centerbridge really are helping fuel our growth. And we couldn’t be in a better place than Collier County.”
Murphy quoted from a third-party study that said the seven-story, 500-room resort would bring about $5 billion in economic impact to the area over the next 30 years and about $150 million over that span in transient occupancy taxes.
Although the region is known to locals at Southwest Florida, Great Wolf Lodge used South Florida in its branding for the strategic reason of attracting visitors from across Alligator Alley, which is just south of the lodge’s 3900 City Gate Blvd. N. address.
“Our typical drive time is anywhere from three to four hours,” Murphy said. “So, we will pull people from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, as well as all the way up from Tampa, of course, Fort Myers and maybe even some from Orlando. I think our bookings to date, since we’ve been open, would indicate that 80% of the people that have booked into this resort so far are outside of Collier County.”
Representatives from private equity companies Blackstone and Centerbridge also were on hand.
“If the demand we’ve seen at Great Wolf’s 21 other resorts across North America is any indication, we’re confident that this lodge will become a special destination for countless families in the years to come,” said Jacob Werner, senior managing director at Blackstone.
County Commissioner Chris Hall wasn’t elected when the Great Wolf agreement came to pass, but he said he was thrilled to be on hand for the grand opening.
“When you think about the impact this will make, it’s trickle-down economics at its finest,” Hall said. “You think we’re excited? Oh yeah, we’re excited.”
Great Wolf Lodge also has a 61,000-square-foot adventure park with a ropes course, miniature golf and MagiQuest, a live-action, interactive fantasy adventure game.
Rates start at $199.99 per night and include water park access after 1 p.m. on check-in day and the following day.
Jason Bays, general manager of the Collier County location, said the number of jobs far exceeded expectations.
“So, originally we anticipated 500 jobs,” Bays said. “We hired 670 pack members for this project, and that’s because we’ve just had a lot of people looking to book rooms, our water parks full every day, our adventure parks busy. And so, we had just an incredible guest demand more than we thought.”
