Schlitterbahn, Ft. Lauderdale, FL -

With the immense success of its original East and West Schlitterbahn water parks in Texas, as well as it’s more recently opened complex in Galveston and its Vacation Village in Kansas City, Schlitterbahn is now looking to add a complex in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. City commissioners have already endorsed a plan for the proposed $110 million water park complex.

The new park will be located around the Lockhart Stadium and Fort Lauderdale Stadium, former home of the Baltimore Orioles spring training, which will be incorporated as part of the sports village. Three other proposals were considered as well, including a baseball facility, a soccer complex, and a multiple sports center.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which gave the land to the city, is playing a role in what can be developed there. They want the Fort Lauderdale Stadium to be used for aviation uses or that fair market rent be paid to them. Schlitterbahn has said they would be willing to pay fair market rent, and their resort proposal has been sent to the FAA for review.

Much like its sister in Galveston, the park will be an entire complex, rather than just a waterpark, and will also include a sports village and a resort complex. The resort itself is to be set up as treehouse-style hotel rooms surrounding the resort, called Treehaus Resort. The sports village will be set up to allow intramural play in the stadium, virtual golf and tennis, and many other sports activities.

The waterpark itself is expected to include a master blaster, multiple tube slides, a tidal wave river, beaches, wave pools, flow riders, sports activity pools, and kiddie pools. The park will also utilize its famous new Transportainment system like the one in place at Galveston, which will allow guests to float or swim from attraction to attraction on an endless lazy river with a conveyor system at the end.

The project is expected to create 400 to 500 jobs during the construction phase of the project and over 1,000 jobs once operating. The park will involve no public tax dollars or money from the City of Ft. Lauderdale, and is expected to have a direct economic impact of $267.4 million a year.