The company billed as owning the largest chain of indoor water parks in the world is in talks with Gilroy about building one of its popular family resorts at the city-owned Gilroy Gardens.
There’s enthusiasm for the project in some circles, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that such proposals can raise concerns among residents.
Mayor Perry Woodward said Tuesday the talks have been ongoing for some time. To learn more about the Madison, Wisconsin, company behind it, Woodward and his family stayed recently at its new Great Wolf Resorts Lodge in Garden Grove, California.
Woodward said they loved it, that it would be a great addition to Gilroy and it would be the only Great Wolf facility between Garden Grove and the state of Washington.
After their overnight stay, his daughters, ages 8 and 10, said that if they returned to Southern California they would pick Great Wolf over Disneyland for their next visit, Woodward said.
“So did my wife and I,” he added. “I was blown away, this is no ordinary water park.”
Woodward paid for the family trip and received no special treatment from the company, he said.
As envisioned at this early stage, the multi-million resort would include a 500- to 600-room destination lodge, indoor water slides some six stories tall, an Olympic-size swimming pool and a conference center and banquet facility that would be available for private and community functions.
Conference facilities are something Gilroy sorely lacks, Woodward pointed out, forcing even the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce to hold its annual dinners in other cities.
If approved by the City Council, the resort could be built on approximately 30 acres of land within the existing Gilroy Gardens Family Park on Hecker Pass Highway, also known as Highway 152.
Once a bucolic stretch of farms, vineyards, nursery lands and the city golf course along the redwood-studded mountain road to the coast, the area in recent years has been gradually swallowed up by hundreds of new homes on small lots in ongoing residential building projects.
Woodward acknowledged there are apt to be initial concerns about traffic and water use at the site, originally called Bonfante Gardens and developed by former Nob Hill Foods grocery chain owner Michael Bonfante before it was purchased by the city.
Woodward urged residents to keep an open mind and suggested that due to the nature of the resort business, traffic will be staggered. He said he does not believe it will be the problem that some might anticipate. He suggested awaiting the results of traffic studies before drawing any conclusions.
He also said that only lodge patrons will have access to the water park, so entrance to the slides and pool will be strictly controlled. Entrance comes with the booking of a room, he said, and that the city would collect its transient occupancy tax on every visitor.
The Garden Grove location was booked solid for the entire summer, the Dispatch found when it tried to book a room.
As for water use, particularly in times of drought, he said the water park uses less in a day than it takes to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool because most of it is very shallow and it’s all collected, cleaned and reused.
Jane Howard, who heads the tourist industry-oriented Gilroy Welcome Center and sits on the board of Gilroy Gardens, thinks Great Wolf would be a great addition to what Gilroy has to offer.
From the welcome center’s perspective, she said, “Having a destination hotel near what is already a destination district could be just such a winner in terms of tourism.”
And speaking as a Gilroy Gardens director, she said the two operations would go well together.
“We just recently completed our master plan and because it identified a hotel as part of the plan, to have [Great Wolf] come up was a nice fit,” Howard said.
In a Monday press release issued by the city, Great Wolf’s director of development, Bryson Heezen, said, “We are continually searching for opportunities to introduce our category-leading family resorts to new markets. The potential to partner with the community of Gilroy and Gilroy Gardens is of great interest to us and we look forward to working together to study the opportunity.”
The release goes on to say that, “Great Wolf Lodge is a year-round family destination resort and an icon in the hospitality industry. Great Wolf Lodge offers popular, award-winning vacation experiences that celebrate relaxed, uninterrupted time with family and create unforgettable memories.”
Woodward in the release said, “This is one of the more exciting opportunities Gilroy has seen in decades. It would bring a world-class hotel, conference center and water park that would complement Gilroy Gardens nicely. It would mean hundreds of new jobs and could add several million dollars to our general fund tax base. And it would allow the city to make use of land it bought back in 2008 which has remained underutilized all these years.”
