PCB looking at three water parks

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Panama City Beach developers are suddenly in love with water parks.

The City Council recently approved a 13.5-acre rezoning request for a new water park along Clara Avenue near Front Beach Road.

Council members also approved a separate rezoning request last fall for a 7.7-acre water park just west of the residential villas of Edgewater Beach Resort.

These two potential parks are in addition to the longtime Shipwreck Island Waterpark located along Alf Coleman Road.

The problem, said Shipwreck general manager Buddy Wilkes, is that Panama City Beach is unable to support two waterparks, much less three.

“The numbers are just not there, basically,” Wilkes said Tuesday.

The parcel of land near Clara Avenue first come up for rezoning in March 2009 but was put on hold because of the owner’s financial problems, said Mel Leonard, city director of planning and building. Those problems have cleared and the land was given preliminary rezoning approval from retail to amusement last week.

The other potential water park, just east of the former Miracle Strip Amusement Park, was given a first-reading rezoning approval in September 2009 but was put on hold because property owner Grand Panama Beach Resort wanted to first work with nearby villa residents to alleviate noise concerns.

Wilkes said all this talk about the glitter of water parks obscures the tough work behind the fa￧ade. The tourist season for a park such as his lasts only about 70 days, Wilkes said.

There are very few locations outside of Orlando, Dallas or Atlanta with a large enough population and/or tourist base to support two full-scale water parks, Wilkes said.

In addition, the local labor pool is limited because most employees are high school students on summer vacation, he said.

“Our ability to open is determined by whether the employees are available,” Wilkes said. “It’s a real precarious business, also subject to the weather.” Shipwreck hired 350 employees last season.

Wilkes said that in tourist destinations across the country, more water parks are in bankruptcy than are opening, and a park such as Shipwreck would cost about $20 million to replicate today.

If two parks decide to battle it out for customers in Panama City Beach, one park would be gone within two years, he said.

“We would probably look for an opportunity to sell the land, or they would,” he said. Because Shipwreck Island does not carry any debt, it could cut prices to try to drive competitors out of business.

Victor Anderson, a representative for Parc Emerald Coast Waterpark LLC, the developer of the 13.5-acre parcel near Clara Avenue, said his research shows that multiple amusement parks could support each other.

“It’s just more things for people to do,” he said. “The goal is to increase room-nights and longer room stays.”

Anderson said with the anticipated May 23 opening of the new Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport, “Panama City Beach is up and coming right now.”

Wilkes said the two new water parks would only serve to enhance the profits of nearby condominiums, rather than operate as a financial end to themselves, such as Shipwreck.

“Both of these developers are in the condominium business,” he said, and the water parks would be used as “loss leaders” while other adjacent property was developed.