Ten days from now, Mesa voters will be asked to hitch their wagon to a dream. It goes by the name Waveyard, and it is a dream in almost a literal sense: Nothing like it has ever been built. Anywhere.
So grand is the plan that backers believe it would instantly transform Mesa into one of Arizona’s top tourist attractions.
“We anticipate that it will be the second destination point only behind the Grand Canyon in Arizona,” said former U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, one of the project’s key proponents.
That residents have had a hard time wrapping their minds around Waveyard was demonstrated at a community meeting late last spring at Whittier Elementary School, just a stone’s throw from the Riverview Golf Course, which would go away if Waveyard comes.
Why should we build this, a woman asked, when the Valley already has several popular, profitable and moderately priced water parks? And why should we sell public land, subsidizing the deal with tax incentives, to get it done?
The answer, zoning attorney Ralph Pew explained, is that this is not just another water park. The developers said it’s not correct even to call it an amusement park, on the order of Disneyland.
But even “water-sports resort,” the term preferred by developers Jerry Hug and Richard Mladick, doesn’t quite do the trick.
What they envision is sort of a city within a city, a collection of Mediterranean-style buildings rising up to 10 stories with office, retail and residences, surrounded by water-sports facilities that would use patented technology.
The only part of Waveyard that would look like a traditional water park will be an indoor facility attached to a resort hotel that Mesa insists be built to four-star standards.
All of this would occupy 121 acres where Riverview Golf Course undulates along the northern side of Eighth Street.
Four softball fields used by adult leagues and the Maricopa County animal shelter also would be replaced.
The $4 million that Hug and Mladick estimate they’ve already spent on lawyers, plans, consultants and other spadework is but a minuscule down payment on an investment expected to soar well past the initial estimate of $250 million.
And that’s just for the first phase. Later additions to the project could take it beyond the $500 million mark.
Scope of attraction
Hug, Mladick and their supporters believe Waveyard, with its rafting course, surfing pool, scuba-diving lagoon and other amenities, would become a national attraction.
“Forty percent of the 1million-plus that will attend this, and we think that’s a very conservative number, 40 percent will be from out of state,” said Salmon, a Mesa native who is lobbying for Waveyard after a political career that took him to Congress and saw him narrowly lose the 2002 governor’s race to Janet Napolitano.
Salmon is a consultant working in the Phoenix office of Greenberg Traurig, a national law firm. He said he has been working with Waveyard for several years, and it was his idea to pitch Waveyard to Mesa in late 2006 even as the company was on the verge of signing a development agreement with Surprise in the northwest Valley.
The Mesa site’s proximity to existing freeways, airports and Arizona State University would make it the better choice, Salmon said, though it is up to Mesa voters.
The deal is up to voters because the city can’t sell city-owned land worth $1.5 million or more for a recreation facility without voter approval.
The price on the land is $30 million, one-third of which the city would get as a cash down payment. The rest would be paid, with interest, over 24 years from taxes generated by the project.
Who would go there?
Whether ordinary Mesa residents would be able to afford the place has been a common question in community meetings, Hug said. But he said many parts of Waveyard would be open to the public free of charge, and pricing for the water features will be flexible, possibly with special breaks for Mesa residents.
Hug also sees Waveyard as a place where civic groups could hold water programs for disabled children, where emergency workers can train for whitewater rescue operations and where sporting groups could host organized competitions, up to and including Olympic trials.
All in all, many say Waveyard is the most ambitious dream in Mesa since voters were asked in 1999 to approve a $1.8 billion proposal to build an Arizona Cardinals football stadium on land just across Dobson Road from the Waveyard site.
That dream died, as did a proposal to build a $125 million resort with some of the same components Waveyard would offer.
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