What amounts to a quasi-gag order has been imposed on talks about building a multi-million dollar waterslide-themed resort at the Gilroy Gardens Family Park, which is facing financial issues of its own.
In the meantime, it’s not just Gilroy that’s being courted by Great Wolf Lodge.
In addition to 12 others nationwide, the Madison, Wisconsin, firm has a newly opened park near Disneyland and wants to bring its family-oriented style of waterslide and hotel theme park to Northern California.
Gilroy was approached last summer, but Brentwood also is under consideration, officials said. Manteca was a possibility but is out of the running, according to press reports. The latter two are in Contra Costa County.
Gilroy City Administrator Gabe Gonzalez met again Tuesday with Great Wolf representatives and said the city has signed a confidential, non-disclosure agreement with the firm.
It bars both parties from releasing to the public any proprietary details of what Gonzalez described Tuesday as “very preliminary” discussions leading towards possible later negotiations.
“We are trying to understand their project and doing our due diligence, looking at other projects they have done,” Gonzalez said.
The city continues to explore the idea of the water park but is not yet in formal negotiations with the firm.
Gonzales also reiterated that Gilroy will not sell land at its botanical theme park, Gilroy Gardens, to Great Wolf.
Most interaction between the city and the firm has been at the staff level so far, he added.
Firm reps toured Gilroy Gardens last month and the idea of Great Wolf building on about 30-acres at the gardens on Hecker Pass Highway on the city’s western edge was discussed in closed sessions by the city council on Aug. 15 and Sept. 12 of 2016 and on Jan. 1 of this year. Nothing was reported out of those meetings, which means no action was taking.
Company officials didn’t have much to say when asked Tuesday about the Gilroy project. The firm issued a noncommittal statement a part of which was identical to one given last September.
“We continually search for opportunities to expand our category-leading, family-friendly brand of indoor waterparks to new audiences. At this point, it is premature to speculate on the potential of us developing a Great Wolf Lodge in Gilroy,” said communications director Jason Lasecki in an email.
As described last year by city officials, the firm envisions a sprawling indoor water park with towering waterslides, a giant pool, a 500- to 600-room hotel and a combined conference and banquet center.
It would be built, they said, on 30 unused acres of dilapidated buildings and unkempt land that once was the headquarters complex, replete with a private gymnasium, of Nob Hill Foods.
The supermarket chain was then owned by Michael Bonfante of Gilroy, the visionary and innovative arborist who spent more than 20 years building, often with his own hands, the verdant, botanically themed park that originally bore his family name.
It ultimately was sold to the city for $12 million when the enterprise encountered financial problems. Gilroy continues to pay off on that purchase debt.
Renamed Gilroy Gardens Family Park, the attraction is operated for the city by a private management firm that takes direction from an appointed board of directors.
Board members last year welcomed the idea of Great Wolf, saying it would be a mutually healthy, synergistic addition to Gilroy Gardens, which closes in the winter, targets young kids and is battling attendance and upcoming financial challenges.
This week, two members of the board said they have no idea what been happening lately between the city and Great Wolf and one suggested the gardens will go on regardless of whether the waterpark is built.
“I know absolutely nothing…we are in the dark as much as everybody else,” said Jane Howard, who heads Gilroy Welcome Center and is the city’s go-to expert on tourism.
Gilroy Gardens is facing it’s own set of financial challenges, not the least of which is a change in minimum wages laws that will hike operating costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The park is exploring enhancing its own water-related attractions to bring in a slightly older group of its target audience, which now is 8 year olds. They want to raise that to 10 year-olds to improve gate receipts.
Former city administrator Jay Baksa is on the gardens board of directors. He said Wednesday that he has no knowledge of what’s been happening in city talks with Great Wolf, but suggested that while Great Wolf and the gardens might compliment one another, the waterpark isn’t viewed as Gilroy Gardens’ potential financial savior.
“We don’t see them creating an enormous amount of attendance for us, whether they are there or not isn’t going to make or break us,” he said.
