After a Decade, This Waterpark May Move Ahead in Bloomington

Who doesn't love a great waterpark, right?  Nothing better than having it be summer and you get to run around, swim, slide, surf, have water fights, and even better when you can do all of those things in one place.

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What about Winter?  It would be even better if you could do all of those things mentioned above in the cold months that we get here in Minnesota.  Usually when we want to do something like this with the family we would have to either go somewhere a lot warmer than here in say...January.  Or drive to Wisconsin Dells, which is also a lot of fun.  But it would be so much better if we could have something like that here in Central Minnesota.

FINANCING

This proposed waterpark - Mystery Cove, has been in the works for about a decade.  It has gone through several proposals, budgets, etc.  And now, it looks like it's moving on to a final approval process.  Some of the previous issues were COVID, that stalled everything initially. Then the cost of construction materials was another obstacle.  The waterpark is projected to cost $375 million with about $160 million of that coming from tax-increment financing from the city of Bloomington.  So, the taxpayers.

Finance & Commerce reports that MOA and Bloomington officials met last week to review the plan, with mall owner Triple 5 saying it has recently secured “significant loan guarantees" for the project. That includes a $120 million loan from Infinite Global Real Estate Partners and a $133 million C-PACE loan administered by the Saint Paul Port Authority.

FINAL APPROVAL

It sounds like the City of Bloomington will be voting on the proposed waterpark at the end of the month. September 30th, next Tuesday, will be the day that a decision should be made.  If approved, construction would begin next year, and hopefully would be completed by 2029.