FLYWAY'S FUTURE The city of Webster continues to privately work with potential business partners to ll the empty Flyway development project with the upcoming Great Wolf Lodge acting as its anchor.
generated by the resort. “As we do better, the county does better,” Jacobsen said. “A lot of the grants are for infrastructure. … The city is building the main road, and those kinds of things are public improvements.” Jacobsen said the resort’s expected pro tability depends on a variety of factors, such as the typical house- hold incomes and age demograph- ics in an area, which guided o cials in their selection of Webster for the new resort. He declined to provide estimates relating to the economic impact of the new resort. “We look anywhere between the third and the fth year as our sta- bilized year, and so it’s important to see if you can get the hotel tax sharing to coincide with that kind of framework,” Jacobsen said. “There’s a lot of negotiations back and forth; you know, there’s no free lunch in this world.” Flyway and the bigger picture The new Great Wolf Lodge is com- monly referred to as the “anchor” for Webster’s upcoming destination development Flyway, which is in the early stages of planning as the city works to ll the planned space with new business partners. “We’re not part of the Flyway development o cially, but we will become an anchor,” Hennessy said. “Businesses come in a lot and set up around us as we are bringing thou- sands of visitors every week. And in addition, we have a conference cen- ter bringing in businesses as well.” The more than 70-acre Flyway development will include entertain- ment, dining, recreation and sports entertainment venues, according to a statement from the city of Webster shown to Community Impact by Web- ster Marketing and Tourism Special- ist Kathryn Vela. The statement reads the WEDC team is actively recruiting entertain- ment venues, restaurants and bars and that “premier venues will be announced soon.”
KEY
Open Coming soon Flyway development Parcel under contract Parcel without contract
GREAT WOLF LODGE
ACADEMY
RUDY'S BBQ
FAIRWAY DR.
Existing road Planned road
TOP GOLF
AMERICAN FURNITURE WAREHOUSE
45
R.
70+ acres
26+ potential openings for businesses
N
SOURCE: WWW.FLYWAYTX.COM COMMUNITY IMPACT
Economic Development Corp. signed an agreement with Great Wolf Resorts. The agreement detailed how the city incentivized the company to select Webster for its next resort and assist in its construction and oper- ation, including building roads to accommodate development. Webster Economic Development Director Betsy Giusto said tourism is a top economic driver for the city, and the Great Wolf Lodge is another piece of the puzzle for attracting visitors. “We’re literally paving the way; you can see the road lanes,” Giusto said. “The Webster way is to be busi- ness friendly.” The city’s incentive package con- sisted of paying the company $5 mil- lion from Webster’s hotel occupancy tax fund, or money collected from taxing the cost of staying at a hotel in the city; reimbursing the lodge’s building permit fee of $500,000; purchasing an environmental insur- ance policy for $153,000; and giving 29 acres of land plus access roads for the resort at no cost to GWR. The agreement states GWR will receive 90% of the city’s portion of hotel tax revenue collected from the resort for 20 years. Addition- ally, the city will provide GWR 33% of the sales taxes it generates for
20 years after Webster retains the rst $200,000 each year. The city’s hotel and sales taxes are set at 7% and 2%, respectively. These incentives are based on Chapter 380 from the Texas Local Government Code, which allows the city of Webster to o er incentives for prospective businesses to promote economic development and stimu- late business or commercial activity. The agreement states the lodge “is a key component and is criti- cal to the success of the destina- tion development,” referring to the Flyway project. Steve Jacobsen, GWR vice presi- dent of domestic development, said the city’s incentive package is based on the economic performance of the resort, such as the city o ering GWR the majority of the hotel tax revenue
CONTINUED FROM 1
“[Webster] helped us overcome obstacles,” Hennessy said. “These are complicated projects to do. You need a good working relationship, and they were wonderful partners. That’s what made a di erence.” The lodge will feature a 532-room resort, a 95,000-square-foot indoor water park, a 58,000-square-foot entertainment center called the Great Wolf Adventure Park and a 11,000-square-foot conference center. The new Great Wolf Lodge will be the rst “Generation 4” lodge the company has built, Hennessy said. A Generation 4 resort is an amalga- mation of the most successful attrac- tions and ideas from previous resorts as well as being generally larger than other lodges, he said. “We put the latest and greatest [attractions] in the latest generation. This one will have a slightly larger waterpark than most of our waterparks. It will have more dry play activities and more food and beverage options,” Hen- nessy said. “The speci cs of what’s in there will just be the latest things that have worked the best.” Webster’s incentive package In October 2021, the Webster
“THIS IS THE LARGEST AND MOST IMPORTANT PROJECT IN OUR CITY'S HISTORY.”
DONNA ROGERS, WEBSTER MAYOR
COURTESY KATHERYN VELA, CITY OF WEBSTER
24
COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM
Powered by FlippingBook