Tuesday, October 31, 2006

$87 million water park resort planned for Faimont, W.Va.

Three Morgantown businessmen, David Rees, Michael Vecchio and Mark Tampoya, have announced plans to build a resort complex filled with water slides and roller coasters, movie screens, retail stores, restaurants and a hotel and conference center at Fairmont, WV. The $87-million resort, developed by The Water Works LLC, will be located on 25 acres of a 107-acre site on the East Side of Fairmont formerly occupied by the Exxon Fairmont Coke Works and the Sharon Steel plant. The resort park is expected to create 350 permanent and 125 seasonal jobs and hopes to attract visitors from West Virginia and the greater Mid-Atlantic region, including Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Columbus, Ohio, and Harrisburg.

The developers plan to begin the first phase of Volcano Island Resort in April, with the park scheduled to open by November 2008. The resort complex will include a 50,000-square-foot indoor water park with a surfing machine and water roller coaster, a 5-acre outdoor park and a 300-room hotel and 30,000-square-foot conference center. At a later date, the developers hope to add as many as 20 movie screens, 80,000 square feet of retail space for stores and restaurants, a 60-slip marina, recreational lake and RV park. A hospitality management company located in Erie, PA, American Resort Management, LLC, will manage operations of the hotel, conference center and water park.

Read more... (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
Read more... (The Times West Virginia)
Read more... (W.Va. Business Blog)

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