Richland County, SC (WLTX) - Richland County Council has voted down the water park that was supposed to be built in northeast Richland County.
According to Richland County Council Member Jim Manning, the vote was taken about a month ago and there will be no further action on the developments of the vote.
Back in 2014, council voted to build a $20 million dollar water park off Farrow Road near I-77. According to Chairman Torrey Rush, the price of park was then brought down to $18 million.
Richland County has hospitality taxes on prepared food with the county making about 5 million a year. Some of those funds would have been used for the park.
A group of council members and staff members even took a trip to Texas with $8,000 of taxpayer money to to learn about the industry from the owner of Hawaiian Falls who owns and operates several water parks around the country and was interested in operating the one in the Midlands.
Another $35,000 was spent on a study in regards to the development of the water park.
"I wish we would've killed it earlier on in the process and stop the process so we wouldn't continue to spend taxpayers' dollars but to spend taxpayers' dollars, get down to the final vote and then go the opposite way concerns me a little bit," Rush explained. "And it concerns me for the taxpayers cause there was a lot of time and effort by staff and consultants to make sure we bring this project to fruition and it didn't happen."
The park was estimated to bring in anywhere from two to four million dollars a year.
Council Chair Torrey Rush had said it would have been instrumental in both driving tourism and providing locals a place to bring their kids. The park would have opened on Memorial Day of 2017.
Councilman Seth Rose has opposed the park from the beginning. He said that a study showed the park would not have been profitable for 12 years. He also said the study did not take into account the new water parks coming to Augusta, GA and a new Carowinds water park in North Carolina.
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