City Manager: City Still Trying to Entice Great Wolf Lodge or Kalahari Resort to Come to El Paso

City Manager Tommy Gonzalez isn’t giving up on his dream of El Paso one day having a resort.

In an interview with one of the local news stations Gonzalez revealed the city still wants Great Wolf Lodge to build a waterpark resort here. And if not Great Wolf than a Kalahari Resort will do.

What is Kalahari Resort and how does it differ from Great Wolf?

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What is Kalahari Resort

Like Great Wolf Lodge, Kalahari Resorts & Conventions are indoor waterparks and family entertainment centers that are open year-round. Named for the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, the resorts are African themed and larger than Great Wolf.

There are currently four in the United States, including one in Round Rock, Texas.

The Round Rock location consists of an indoor waterpark and outdoor water park, outdoor swimming pools, an indoor “adventure park” with arcade games, rides, climbing walls and more, a 975-room hotel, five restaurants, numerous shops, and a convention center.

Great Wolf Deal Has Fallen Through Once

Great Wolf Resorts pulled out of a multi-million-dollar deal it had with the city to build an indoor water park resort in Northwest off I-10 and Artcraft in April of 2020 citing the global pandemic’s impact on the economy.

The company recently broke ground on 3 new projects; one in Webster, Texas (part of the Houston metropolitan area), another in Naples, Florida, and a third outside of Baltimore, Maryland, so it’s clearly on more stable financial footing.

Where Would a Resort Be Built?

The city sold the land it was going to gift Great Wolf Lodge in 2021, so where would any resort the city enticed into coming to El Paso be built?

In the interview with the news station, Gonzalez didn’t specifically address that, but he did note land the city owns on I-10 and Zaragoza would be “prime” for something “larger in scale.”