City staff and American Resort Management outline Epic Waters expansion, timeline and costs

City staff, with representatives from American Resort Management, presented a master plan for expanding Epic Waters to the Grand Prairie City Council and asked for council permission to return with a design-fee proposal on April 1 and April 15.

A staff presenter said the master-plan work was done by Martin Aquatic Design and Engineering after a 2020 RFQ and a selection process that began before COVID; design-phase work started in July 2021 and concluded in June 2022. The proposal before council focused on a first phase that would enclose the existing outdoor wave pool, add two indoor–outdoor slide towers and three kiddie slides, a food-and-beverage building, upgraded restrooms, party rooms and two-story cabanas. The presenter said the first-floor footprint for the new enclosed space is about 42,000 square feet, with total building area between 45,000 and 50,000 square feet when including basement mechanical space.

On costs, staff presented multiple figures. They initially cited a design-fee range of $1,900,000 to $2,100,000, then said the design fee “is actually $1,000,009.89” for the current proposal. The presentation also included a construction-cost estimate “in the range of 18.25 to 21.75” (units not specified in the presentation). Staff said none of the work “hits the budget, the CIP tax rate” and described the funding source as EPIC quarter-cent revenue; staff asserted the project’s energy and operations revenue would pay back the investment “under 10 years.”

Staff requested council’s “blessing” to bring back the finalized design-fee proposal for formal consideration on April 1 and April 15. If approved to proceed with design, the presenter said the design phase would likely take eight to 10 months, construction would start in spring 2026 and last roughly 10 to 14 months, and the team would target a summer 2027 opening — noting that construction would likely eliminate one outdoor-wave-pool season during the work.

Council members asked about parking and short-term revenue impacts. Staff said a separate parking-design effort is already underway to expand an existing VIP parking area and noted an area proposed for parking sits over an Encore easement (power lines) and may limit land uses. Staff estimated the revenue loss from closing the wave-pool area for one summer at about $2.5 million; that figure is part of the project’s 10-year return-on-investment calculation.

Representatives from American Resort Management and staff emphasized the need to move early on long lead times for certain equipment — “some of the lead time on our equipment is 40 weeks,” the Encore area manager had noted earlier in the meeting — and to plan mechanical, electrical and plumbing capacity in a lower-level basement to avoid painting the facility into a corner for future phases.

No formal vote was recorded on the master-plan presentation during the meeting. Staff requested direction to return with formal documents in April.