Mobile County Pays $54,000 to Study Great Wolf Lodge-Style Indoor Water Park Resort Off Halls Mill Road

MOBILE, Ala. — Could a Great Wolf Lodge-style indoor water park resort be in Mobile County’s future? County commissioners are taking a closer look. The Mobile County Commission voted Thursday to spend $54,000 on a new feasibility and financial study for an indoor water park resort on county-owned land off Halls Mill Road, months after a $60 million outdoor water park plan for the same area fell apart.

Commission President Connie Hudson said discussions with a potential developer remain preliminary. The study, she said, is expected to help determine whether the project is viable and whether the county would sell or lease the property to a private developer.

Hudson did not say which resort brand the county is working with, but she said the proposal would closely follow the models used by Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari Resorts, two of the best-known names in the indoor water park resort business.

What the commission approved

The $54,000 contract goes to Hotel & Leisure Advisors, a consulting firm that specializes in hospitality, water park and leisure projects. The firm is familiar with the county’s ambitions. In 2022, commissioners paid it $60,000 to recruit private developers and negotiate a potential water park development on county-owned land.

Hotel & Leisure Advisors has previously worked with some of the nation’s largest indoor water park resort operators, including Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari. A February 2026 proposal the firm prepared for the city of Bastrop, Texas, shows it has done work involving both brands.

Feasibility and financial studies of this kind typically examine whether a project can attract enough visitors and generate enough revenue to succeed. They often look at the size of the surrounding market, drive-time populations, competing attractions, the likely mix of hotel rooms and amenities, construction and operating costs, and projected attendance. For a local government, such a study can also help frame the terms of any deal, including whether public land should be sold outright or leased.

What happened to Jubilee Park

The new study follows the collapse of an earlier plan. In April 2025, Louisiana-based Leisure Sports and Recreation, or LSAR, unveiled plans for “Jubilee Park,” a roughly $60 million development that would have featured water attractions, athletic facilities, lodging, dining and retail near the Mobile County Sportsplex.

Commissioners approved a nonbinding letter of intent to advance the project, but the deal ultimately fell through. At the time it was unveiled, LSAR projected the roughly 90-acre development could draw 400,000 to 500,000 visitors a year, create about 300 construction jobs and support roughly 50 full-time and 300 to 400 seasonal jobs, with the developer expected to fund the project privately. As this site previously reported, the proposal pitched by LSAR, which operates Gulf Islands Waterpark in Gulfport, Mississippi, included an outdoor water park, an indoor water park, an indoor multiuse sports center, a boardwalk with restaurants and shops, festival grounds, park space and lodging. Hudson said in August that she did not know exactly why the plan faded, but that the company’s attention appeared to turn after it bought another water park in Baton Rouge.

In August, Hudson confirmed the county had moved on to discussions with a different developer. At the time, she declined to name the group or offer a timeline, describing the talks as “serious” but too preliminary to discuss in detail. Thursday’s vote is the first formal step the commission has taken publicly since then.

The Halls Mill Road site

The property at the center of the plan is part of the Mobile County Sportsplex, a long-championed initiative of Hudson’s. When commission district lines were recently redrawn, Hudson had the park shifted into her district.

The site hugs the northwest corner of the interchange of Interstates 65 and 10, giving it direct access to two of the Gulf Coast’s busiest highways. It is already home to an expanding soccer complex that draws tournament traffic, and it will soon welcome the new Mobile County Aquatics Center.

The aquatics center, a roughly $33 million facility with a 20-lane outdoor pool and a six-lane indoor pool, has faced repeated delays. As this site has reported, the county now hopes to finish it by the end of the year after construction repairs and weather pushed back earlier opening targets. Hudson has said the project is not over budget.

County leaders have long argued that the location’s highway access makes it a natural fit for a regional attraction. Travelers headed to and from the Gulf Coast beaches pass close by, and the site sits within a reasonable drive of population centers in south Alabama, south Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle. Pairing a resort with youth sports facilities could also give visiting families somewhere to stay and play during tournament weekends.

What a Great Wolf or Kalahari-style resort looks like

Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari operate family-oriented resorts that combine a hotel, a large indoor water park, restaurants and entertainment under one roof. Because the water parks are enclosed and climate-controlled, they operate year-round regardless of weather, which sets them apart from seasonal outdoor water parks.

Great Wolf Lodge, which opened its first indoor water park resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, has grown into a chain of resorts across the United States and Canada, built around a lodge theme with water slides, wave pools, arcades and kid-focused attractions. Kalahari, which also began in Wisconsin Dells, operates large African-themed resorts in several states that pair indoor water parks with convention and meeting space.

Resorts of this type are typically designed as destinations in their own right, drawing families for overnight stays and weekend getaways rather than single-day visits. Guests at many of them get water park access as part of their room stay, and the resorts often add amenities such as mini golf, ropes courses, spas and dining to keep visitors on site.

The closest indoor water park to Mobile today is Tropic Falls at OWA in Foley, the Baldwin County entertainment and resort district that is home to an amusement park, shops, restaurants and hotels.

Why it matters to Mobile County

Supporters of the concept see a resort of this kind as a way to capture tourism spending that now largely flows to the beaches in Baldwin County and the Florida Panhandle. Hotel stays generate lodging taxes, and visitors spend money at restaurants, gas stations and stores, which can help support local tax revenue.

A year-round indoor attraction could also give local families an option close to home for birthdays, school breaks and rainy days, and add jobs in hospitality and maintenance.

Still, large resort projects take years to plan, finance and build, and many proposals never move past the early stages, as Jubilee Park showed. The feasibility study is meant to test whether the numbers work before the county goes further.

What comes next

Hudson said the study will help the commission understand whether the project is viable and how the county should structure any deal for the land. No developer has been publicly identified, and no cost estimate, timeline or design for an indoor resort has been released.

Key questions still to be answered include:

• Who the developer is and which resort brand, if any, would operate the property.
• Whether the county would sell the land or lease it.
• How large the resort would be and how many hotel rooms it would include.
• What, if any, financial incentives or public investment the county would provide.
• How the resort would fit alongside the soccer complex and the new aquatics center.

Hudson has previously said any future proposal would include a public presentation before the county makes a final decision. Residents can follow Mobile County Commission meetings and agendas through the county’s official website, mobilecountyal.gov.