Great Wolf Lodge will give Collier County a boost with a destination attraction and a 500-suite hotel, the company’s 21st resort in the country.
At 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Great Wolf Lodge executives will be on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony at 3940 City Gate Blvd. S. in East Naples. It’s a 20-acre lot on the eastern end of Collier County, just adjacent to the county’s Paradise Coast Sports Complex. It’s also near the Interstate 75 interchange at Collier Boulevard.
Great Wolf Lodge, billing itself as North America’s largest family indoor water park resort, is known for attracting children and families to venues. The Naples location is slated to open in 2024 and will have 100,000 square feet of indoor water park and 62,000 square feet of attractions.
Blackstone and Centerbridge Partners are investing more than $250 million into the project. It will bring in 250 to 500 construction-related jobs and 600 full- and part-time jobs upon the lodge’s opening, according to company officials.
Last summer, Collier County commissioners approved a $15 million economic development agreement with Chicago-based Great Wolf Resorts Inc. for the resort project in City Gate Commerce Park. Great Wolf Lodge surely would boost Collier’s national profile as a vacation destination, said Paul Beirnes, the executive director of county’s visitor and convention bureau.
“What I think you’re going to find about Great Wolf Lodge, is it’s a very different kind of a venture,” Beirnes said. “It’s a destination attraction type of venture. How or if the operation differs in Collier County versus a lot of their hotels up north remains to be seen.
“If I were a child or a family in the middle of snow, it’s a different scenario than here with the local beaches. It will be interesting to see how this one is different from the ones up north.”
That the Great Wolf Lodge will be built next door to a busy youth sports complex is more of a coincidence, Beirnes said.
“My understanding was, this was one of the only pieces of property in Collier where the space allowed for it to be built,” Beirnes said. “It’s certainly unique. It will provide great strength for our tourism development tax. It will be a big project. It will be an exciting project.”
Look for more on Great Wolf Lodge in Thursday’s Gulfshore Business Today newsletter and on WINK News.
