KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- A 300-acre, $300 million water resort is the latest, biggest proposed attraction in Wyandotte County, just across Interstate 435 from the thriving Village West development.

The project's price tag eclipses even that of Village West's centerpiece attraction, the 5-year-old Kansas Speedway, which cost $252 million when it was built.

At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Unified Government officials said the water park will bring in about $3 million in new property taxes each year, and stressed that no properties will be seized through eminent domain or condemnation.

The water park will be dubbed Schlitterbahn Vacation Village, with some parts of the operation running year-round. It will include a riverwalk -- complete with a retractable roof -- a water park and a water resort area.

The developers hope to have the park opened in three years.

Jeff Harris, director of development for Schlitterbahn WaterParks, based in New Braunfels, Texas, said the park will be three times bigger than the largest of Schlitterbahn's three other water parks.

Harris said original plans had the company building its mega-park somewhere else, but Kansas City officials changed the company's mind.

"We were planning on building this facility in another city, but Kansas came in and stole it," he said. "Middle America is something we had overlooked."

Schlitterbahn owns two water parks in Texas, where single-day adult admission is between $32 and $35, and $27 to $28 for children. Admission prices at Vacation Village will be in the same range, Harris said.

The word Schlitterbahn in German means "slippery road," he said.

Unified Government Mayor Joe Reardon said the park will result in 3,000 new jobs with an annual payroll of around $90 million annually, and have a $400 million impact in the county while it's being built.

Jill Shackelford, superintendent of the Kansas City, Kan., school district, said she was happy to hear there would be no property tax incentives for the project -- which means more money for her school district.

"This will be a neat facility for our kids," she said. "We lack a lot of entertainment in the summer. This also provides the potential for students to have summer jobs."


[url="http://www.kctv5.com/Global/story.asp?S=3857096"]http://www.kctv5.com/Global/story.asp?S=3857096[/url]

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With this being a Schlitter park it should be great... And a little closer to my home so hopefully Schlitterbahn starts to expand north and we get high quality waterparks in the upper midwest...

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They should build a Schlitter park in New York.

Awesome, two great things for the amusment industry in Kansas announced in the same year. If this thing gets approved, I will defintaley be there instead of Oceans of Fun!

That sounds incredibly huge and awesome. I think it will bring in a lot of people and could lead to other stuff being built in and around the area. A 300 acre waterpark, that's enormous!

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I want to go to John's Park.

^Did you see the tree house style resort that they have? Schlitterbahn.com has renderings but I'll have to find the link.

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No, I haven't. I've just seen what was posted and the article itself. I'm sure it will be very nice since I always hear about Schlitterbahn. I'm not huge on waterparks, I do like them but I usually just stick to the wave pool and lazy river. I'm just excited about the oppertunity it provides for them and could also lead to other tourist attractions such as other amusement parks. Just look at what's happened in Wisconsin Dells. It started off as a lot of waterparks and now there are full flegded parks being slowly formed right before our eyes.

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I want to go to John's Park.

One thing I do not like about the park is the mile long lazy river...especially seeing how they aren't installing any more slides in the park. I think they could have saved a little on the lazy river and went half the size and then built more slides. That's probably the only thing that I do dislike about the park, other than that it looks pretty cool.

For those of you that haven't seen it, here's the link:

[url="http://www.schlitterbahn.com/corp/media/vacation-village.asp"]http://www.schlitterbahn.com/corp/media/vacation-village.asp[/url]

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I love how the treehouses are spread out through the park with what looks to be hanging walkways connecting them all (the red lines on the map). I also love how they have slides from the treehouses into the lazy rivers.

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