A visionary too old for the waterslide

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/04/2004 (7815 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT pains me to admit this, but one of my best buddies actually might know what he’s talking about.

Gerry Kaplan is a born-and-bred Winnipegger, a self-employed research consultant and father of three teenagers. We’ve been friends since we were teenagers ourselves.

In those 30-plus years, Gerry has never had an idea that I’ve not been able to dismiss. What else are friends for?

This time, however, it looks as though he has been on to something, if front-page stories in the Winnipeg Free Press are any indication.

In fact, Gerry may yet prove to have been a bloody visionary.

Last week, a Toronto developer went public with his plan to convert the Winnipeg Arena into a state-of-the-art aquatic theme park.

If Sieg Holle of Hollecrest & Associates has his way, the Winnipeg Aquatic Palladium will contain a series of giant waterslides, waterpark rides and a wave pool.

Holle wants to employ a B.C. company, WhiteWater West, that has designed 2,000 of these complexes elsewhere in the world, including Russia and Asia. Winnipeg’s will be open 12 months a year, even in the depths of winter, and will attract 500,000 people annually from far and wide.

Free Press editors think the idea has such potential that they put my colleague Aldo Santin’s story about it on the front page last Saturday.

And I see by another Santin story yesterday that a young city resident, Ty Tran, is so impressed with the concept that he is starting a petition to convince city hall of its merit.

The local former concert promoter Bruce Rathbone had the idea a couple years ago, but apparently he lacked $5 million.

To quote Gerry, “I told you so.”

For years, he has been at me to write something about the need for an indoor waterpark in this benighted city of ours.

As far as he’s concerned, it’s the ultimate family destination. Especially in Winnipeg, and especially in winter, when the illusion of outdoor fun in the sun is something we’re happy to pay for.

Gerry and his wife, Nancy Hughes, know waterparks. If there’s one within a 2,000-kilometre radius of us that they haven’t visited, they want to know about it.

Every summer since their kids could crawl, they have piled into the family van and driven off on one of those National Lampoon-style camping vacations.

Their destination invariably has been some family theme park in Ontario or Alberta, Wisconsin or Minnesota, where they pay hundreds of dollars a day to sploosh down plastic sides and gorge on greasy french fries.

When they’ve come back, psychically battered and dead broke, Gerry and Nancy regale us with stories of how they’ve coped.

Some people have called them crazy. I call them dedicated parents.

So if Gerry tells me that a waterpark here to equal the glories of the one in West Edmonton Mall or the Mall of America would be a dream come true, I guess I should pay attention to him.

The city, of course, wants to get a decent buck for the arena property. After all, it is sitting on some of the hottest retail land in Winnipeg. Developers would have no problem filling it with more gruesome big-box stores. Just what we need, eh?

Maybe there’s a better location for a waterpark. Surely, retrofitting the arena has its problems. By the time you remove and replace all of the mechanical, electrical and other systems, add windows for light and remodel, a purpose-built structure might be more cost-effective and a more pleasing environment.

That said, you add strength to strength when you build a destination concept at a destination site. It works for Edmonton and Minneapolis. And it even works for Winnipeg’s Ledohowski family, who are building a waterpark as part of their new hotel adjacent to the Alerus Center in Grand Forks.

Wherever it gets put, the Winnipeg Water Palladium will be too late for Gerry. His kids are past the age where they want to be seen in public with him.

And he’s past the age where he should be seen in public in a bathing suit.

Ty Tran, however (judging by his picture yesterday), looks darned fit, and he’s the future of Winnipeg.

Gerry can console himself with one thing. Moses didn’t live to see the Promised Land, but they called him a visionary, too.

morley.walker@freepress.mb.ca