Driving down the Seward Highway from Anchorage, the majestic peaks of the Chugach range smile down upon you in their snow-peaked glory, shifting from white to purple to green before plunging into the shimmering waters of the Cook Inlet. With so much open space and distinctive beauty, it’s tempting to think that all of Alaska is a pristine wilderness, but anyone who’s been to Anchorage knows different. Far from the rustic capital of the public imagination, Anchorage is a gleaming American city of 250,000, complete with all the marks of modern suburbia: big box retailers, cookie-cutter condominiums, and all the fast food you can eat. To a visitor, it can seem distressingly like any other city—John McPhee once called Anchorage “condensed, instant Albuquerque”—but the natives know that you can’t fish for halibut 365 days a year, and that sooner or later you’re going to want to buy groceries. Or, for that matter, go to the movies, the arcade, the miniature golf course. Or, now, the indoor waterpark. No Mystery, Alaska Jammed with visitors since it opened in March, the H2Oasis Indoor Waterpark is fast making a name on the Anchorage recreation scene. Attendance has exceeded expectations, as the park has drawn visitors from all over the state. Well aware that Alaska’s permanent residents won’t pay top dollar for the glacier cruises and guided fishing expeditions that dominate the regional tourist market, the folks at H2Oasis have aimed for the locals, building a year-round playground that is warm, wet, and yes, indoors. When winter rolls around and the seasonal markets dry up, H2Oasis will still be plugging, offering guests a respite from the long cold nights of the Alaskan winter. And chances are, the ride they’ll be lining up for is the Master Blaster, a NBGS International water coaster that careens, climbs, and curves through 505 feet of H2Oasis airspace before dumping riders through splashdown and into the “endless river” that circles the park. Over in 24 seconds, a trip on the Master Blaster is short, swift, and addictive, making the ride the most popular attraction in the 56,000-square-foot facility. Other features include the 575-foot river, a 150-foot body slide, a wave pool, two hot tubs, and a children’s lagoon. The lagoon is home to the Sea Dragon pirate ship, a NBGS creation that features water cannons, spouting yardarms, and seven short slides into a foot of water. And if H2Oasis feels like it’s still finding its institutional feet—in June, bulldozers were grading the parking lot, the edifice was unpainted plywood, and there was no permanent sign directing visitors to the facility—those in the know are just happy it’s finally open. “Perseverance wins,” says Dennis Prendeville, CEO of the Alaska Waterpark Company, which owns and operates H2Oasis. He has this advice for anyone planning to build a waterpark in Alaska: “Bring lots of aspirin.” It’s been a long road for Prendeville and his investors: Construction took 16 months longer than expected, and Prendeville could only watch as the price tag rose from $6.5 million to $7.5 million to almost $9 million by the time the doors opened. “We ran into considerable difficulties with this project because we were building a waterpark in Alaska, and that had never been done before,” says Prendeville, flashing the grin of a man whose headaches are largely behind him. While Prendeville isn’t the only executive at H2Oasis, he has been its driving force: if it weren’t for him, the park would never have been built. An engineer by trade, Prendeville spent 25 years working on the Alaskan oil pipeline, and got his amusement industry start pitching miniature golf and recreational simulators. He can’t pin down quite when he hatched the idea of an indoor waterpark in Anchorage, but 1997 found him at the World Waterpark Association convention in San Antonio. He stopped by the NBGS booth and told them what he had in mind; the company rep set up a meeting with their lead designer the same day. A few days later, Prendeville held a park design in his hands. “I couldn’t believe the drawing they came back with, because it projected a great deal of what I was trying to put together here,” Prendeville recalls. “It was like they listened to every word I said, and then they put it right out there.” At the same trade show, Prendeville visited New Braunfels’ Schlitterbahn and took his first ride on a Master Blaster, walking away wet and impressed. That night, he spoke with a park operator from the Waterworld theme park in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Waterworld had recently installed one of the world’s first indoor water coasters to great success, and by the end of their conversation, Prendeville was convinced he wanted one in his own park. NBGS quickly adjusted their design to incorporate a coaster, and Prendeville went to work securing investors. Making Waves By July 2001, construction had started on H2Oasis. Prendeville hired local architects and contractors to build the main structure—on a clear day, you can see Mt. McKinley from the 43-foot high launch platform—and signed up North Beach Engineering out of Jacksonville, Fla., to oversee the waterpark construction. Dave Fogus led the actual construction of the elements—installing slides, running pipes, and pouring concrete in conditions that were a touch cooler than his Texas crew was accustomed to. “They’re probably the only people in the world who have poured a wave pool when the ambient temperature was below zero,” Prendeville laughs. The winter of 2001 was one of the coldest on record in Anchorage; to combat the elements, the work crew built a tent over the site and brought in a two-million BTU/hour heater. (Fogus later likened the experience to pouring concrete in a sleeping bag.) On the day in late December when the building was finally closed in, morale soared. “It was tough,” Prendeville admits, “but there was never a whimper from Dave or his crew when they were here. They were just tremendous.” While the bitter Alaska winter caused a few construction delays, permit problems proved an even bigger chill. The State of Alaska was wary of the specialty engineering firms working on the project, since none were licensed and registered in Alaska. And while state-licensed engineers reviewed every plan submitted by the specialty firms, government officials found this arrangement unacceptable. The dispute went all the way to Loren Leman, Alaska’s senate majority leader at the time (now the lieutenant governor). An engineer by trade, Leman had written the laws on the licensing of engineers in Alaska, and helped broker an understanding between the H2Oasis team and the state Division of Occupational Licensing. The flap caused a four-month delay in a project that was already running behind schedule and over cost. A final bump in the road to opening was a change in construction plans. Prendeville and his associates had originally planned to add the Master Blaster later, as a phase two improvement to the park. A feasibility study from Land and Leisure Inc. convinced the group to open big: rather than tease visitors with the promise of something to come, the study advised H2Oasis to play their best card first and install the Blaster in initial construction. The H2Oasis investors agreed. As an added bonus, NBGS was able to offer the uphill coaster at a discount: they had one sitting idle after Taiwanese officials had scrapped a planned waterpark and cancelled their order. Looking back, Prendeville is glad he took Land and Leisure’s advice: “adding this Master Blaster after we were already open would be an incredible task. It could be done, but the way we did it was much more cost-effective.” As his headaches mounted, Prendeville saw his grand opening date get pushed further and further back. The local residents were well aware of the delays—the first televised teasers had promised a winter 2001 opening, and local news outlets were covering the construction with interest—and before long the repeated postponements were drawing more attention than the park itself. “It became a bit of news,” Prendeville acknowledges. “‘When the heck are you guys finally going to get this thing open?’ “[We call those] the delay newscasts,” adds Terri Collins, H2Oasis’s director of marketing, “which Dennis always pulled off fairly well.” Rather than complicate the situation by complaining about the permit process, Prendeville remained upbeat, promising a bigger and better park upon completion. “I tried to stay optimistic,” Prendeville says. “[I said] we’re getting it done and it’s worth waiting for.” Local Fanfare Alaskans apparently agreed. When the doors finally opened on March 15, 2002, it seemed half of Anchorage was standing in line. It was spring break in Alaska, and during the first week, H2Oasis ran at full capacity. (H2Oasis has a maximum bather load of 500 and a building occupancy limit of 1,400.) People were waiting up to four hours just to get in the building, and workers were turning away cars as they pulled into the unfinished parking lot. Prendeville credits the aggressive marketing campaign for creating the frenzy: “Terri put together a marketing program that got every kid in town wanting to get into this waterpark long before we even had a prayer of getting it done.” And while the pace has slackened somewhat from those first frantic days, H2Oasis remains a crowded, popular place. A thousand visitors a day isn’t uncommon; on a Saturday, H2Oasis might host as many as 20 birthday parties in addition to the usual throngs. The visitors are mostly locals. While the park is happy to host any tourists who want to come—and evidence suggests that some are doing just that—H2Oasis is aiming for the resident market. Prendeville notes that 150,000 people live within five miles of the park, and another 150,000 live within 75 miles. Together, that’s roughly half the population of the state. “We really try to offer something that all of Alaska can utilize,” Collins says. “We believe it will be about 90 percent local, 10 percent tourism.” Of course, in a state as big and sparsely populated as Alaska, “local” takes on its own meaning. In its first three months, H2Oasis hosted school groups from places as distant as Fairbanks (360 miles), Sitka (600 miles), Ketchikan (800 miles), and Barrow (800 miles). Many of these school groups fly in—the flights alone can cost $700 a head—and one booked the park for both a Friday and the following Monday. (These trips—generally reserved for graduating seniors or other special groups—are designed to give the kids a glimpse of Anchorage, in the hopes that they may decide to come to town and pursue a college degree there.) “In our original feasibility studies,” Prendeville notes, “we assumed that there were going to be 7,000 or 8,000 people from other parts of Alaska coming here annually. It wouldn’t surprise me if we’ve done that [in three months].” Of course, that feasibility study has proven conservative in other ways as well: projected to draw 154,000 visitors a year, H2Oasis pulled in almost 60,000 guests in its first 12 weeks in operation. Prendeville and his crew know things will slow down when school is back in session. They expect big weekends throughout the winter—the 84-degree water and 86-degree air will surely be a draw—but understand that a Tuesday morning in January might be a touch slow. Still, they’re ecstatic about their big opening and eager to expand: plans call for the addition of a 368-foot open slide by 2005. There will also be a gift shop, massage table, and tanning area, as well as the “Feeding Frenzy Food Court” that is already operating on the park’s second-floor mezzanine. Prendeville talks about hosting corporate events, and even hints that he might build an outdoor extension, running waterslides in the summer and toboggan rides in the winter. His big dream, however, is to build a hotel next door. Together with his investors, Prendeville owns 57 acres adjacent to the waterpark, and thinks that a neighboring site might be just right for a 100-bed hotel. It’s not a pipe dream: the H2Oasis building was designed to accommodate a second-floor skyway from the anticipated hotel, and Prendeville thinks it’s just a matter of time before he gets it built. After building Alaska’s first indoor waterpark, something as straightforward as a small hotel must seem like child’s play. At any rate, Prendeville’s ready for the challenge. As long as he has his aspirin.
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