Wyandotte County approves tax incentives for $838M redevelopment of Schlitterbahn site

Luke Nozicka
·2 min read
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Wyandotte County commissioners approved new tax incentives to support the $838 million redevelopment of the defunct Schlitterbahn water park.

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, issued $65 million in industrial revenue bonds to help construct a 150,000-square-foot sports building and $45 million in bonds to support creating outdoor facilities, including baseball fields.

Commissioners passed plans to make the area a Community Improvement District after they were presented with a list of project components, including a 55,000-square-foot, $53 million live music and sports arena.

The property, which sits near interstates 435 and 70, is the former site of the Schlitterbahn water park, where a 10-year-old boy died in 2016 on a slide that was later torn down.

Homefield LLC, which was founded by Robb Heineman, a former CEO and current part-owner of Sporting KC, plans to revamp the area in western Wyandotte County to include a new art museum and golf entertainment venue, among other things.

Visitors to the district will pay an additional 2% sales tax. Homefield still plans to bring the metro area’s first Margaritaville resort and hotel to its project, with a resort fee of $30 added to the cost of a room.

Wyandotte County residents will get a 20% discounted admissions in the new district, commissioners were told. The developer has also agreed to invest at least $4.35 million over three years in projects downtown and in urban areas.

Commissioner Chuck Stites, District 7, said the county’s return for the project “heavily outweighs our investment.”

CEO and Mayor Tyrone Garner said he supports investment in the community, but wanted to be sure developers are paying their fair share. Everywhere he goes across Wyandotte County, he said, people are begging for tax relief.

“I’ve talked to people a lot smarter than me that have looked at practices over the last two or three decades and said, ‘We’ve given too much away in incentives that have caused property valuations to go up,’” Garner said, “and the average everyday hard working person is paying for that to this day.”

The development plan also includes a BigShots Golf entertainment complex and a 30,000-square-foot facility called Atlas 9, which was described to commissioners as a “magically-transformed movie theater.”