Indoor Ski Resort Planned For Grand Prairie
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GRAND PRAIRIE (CBSDFW.COM) - City leaders will announce plans Tuesday afternoon to build a 350,000-square-foot snow ski facility and luxury hotel in Grand Prairie.
The city is partnering with the Grand Alps Resort and Hard Rock Hotels for the $215 million project. It will be located at the northwest corner of I-30 and Belt Line across from Lone Star Park.
The indoor ski resort will operate year-round and will include a ski slope measuring nearly 300 feet tall and 1200 feet long, an indoor ice climbing wall, luge track and winter wonderland play area.
The adjoining Hard Rock Hotel will contain 300 rooms, two restaurants, a spa, rooftop pool and exercise facilities. A second hotel will be built or 300 rooms added to the first hotel within two years of the first hotel's opening.
Developers have already completed several similar projects, including inside a shopping mall in Dubai, one of the hottest cities in the Arab world. They are confident they can duplicate the experience in North Texas.
"Because we're the originators of it. We've done 23 in the world, they're all still up and operating, and we know the snow business," said Sherman Thurston of The Grand Alps Group.
But others have tried to bring this type of project to North Texas and failed. Brad Douglas says he remembers two other announcements in other cities over the past decade.
"There's been a couple of groups that have presented this and not make it yet," said Brad Douglas at Doug & Lynda's Ski Shop. "So, I don't know if it will happen but if it did I would get behind it any way to promote it."
The City of Grand Prairie will donate the land, 3-year Tax Increment Financing, along with real estate and hotel tax breaks for several years.
Mayor Ron Jensen said, "It may not work now. Tere's no guarantee. But there's little risk for the city and it would be quite foolish if we didn't attempt to hit it."
Thurston claims his project is 85% financed. When finished it will be slightly smaller than AT&T Stadium with room for more than two thousand skiers at a time with snowboarding, slalom runs, and more.
"What are you going to do on those hot, hot days here? Why not go for skiing? A little ski run? I think it has a lot of potential," said 50-year skiing veteran Fred Johnston.
Groundbreaking is expected in 2015 and the project is scheduled to open in early 2018. The resort will create 1,900 jobs when it opens.
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