Think about tourist activities in North Conway and skiing usually comes to mind, maybe some shopping at the outlet malls.
Now you can add swimming - even in February. North Conway has become home to New England’s first indoor water park, the Kahuna Laguna.It’s open for good now, but its debut was a little less than smooth.
NHPR Correspondent Richelle Elberg reports.
[sounds from water park, fade under]
The Kahuna Laguna at the Red Jacket Mountain View Resort is a brand new, 14 million dollar, 40 thousand square foot, indoor water park.
It’s got four high speed slides, the wiki wave pool and the Bamboo Bay Adventure Tower.
On this day dozens of children and adults have left the cold snow outside to enjoy the heated pools.
[Fade out water park sound]
For tourists at the resort, the Kahuna Laguna has been one of vacation week’s highlights.
But almost didn’t open.
The trouble started back in January.
Inspectors found a 1,500 square foot building had been left off the original site plans.
Earl Sires is the Town Manager for Conway.
“…So our inspection staff went up and saw this piece of equipment that’s about the size of a residential garage on site, and since it had not been included in the original site plan they required the Red Jacket to submit an ammended site plan.” [earl sires 1]
As a result of the ommission, the town said the Red Jacket couldn’t open the park.
Hotel officials asked if they could open up temporarily during the all-important February vacation weeks.
But the town refused, scheduling a new planning board meeting at the end of the month.
The hotel opened the Kahuna Laguna anyway.
Dave Beaudoin is the General Manager of the Red Jacket Mountain Resort
… we were scheduled to open on February 8th, we had hundreds of reservations, we had done a mass mailing, and we made the decision that we were not going to disappoint a lot of families who had planned vacations, particularly February vacation, around a water park, so we made the decision to open and operate rather than turn away hundreds of families.” [dave beaudoin 1]
In response, the town went to court and a judge ruled in its favor to keep the park closed.
Still, that didn’t stop the hotel.
Despite daily fines and the risk of contempt of court charges, the Kahuna Laguna stayed open between February 15th and the 26th.
Then the judge put his foot down and hotel manager Dave Beaudoin says the park had to close.
.
“The last fine that was imposed was $1,000 an hour.” [dave beaudoin 2]
Rather than force its guests out of the park at 2 in the afternoon, the Red Jacket paid $7,000 to stay open until 9 p.m.
But in the meantime, the ongoing conflict pitted the business community against town officials.
Bill Cuccio owns the Lobster Trap restaurant and is a former town Selectman.
“Almost everybody in town, small business people, people you meet on the street, really support and appreciate the things that the Red Jacket does and don’t understand why they’re being tied up.
Cuccio said he thought town officials were overstepping their authority and had lost sight of their purpose.
But Earl Sires, the town manager, says he has laws and regulations to follow.
“There is a process that has to occur, wherein the town has to make sure that all of the elements of the site meet local codes and assured that the rights of the neighbors and the community in general as well as the owners are being protected.” [earl sires 2]
After weeks of fighting and thousands of dollars in fines issued against the hotel, the planning board finally granted the hotel its permit.
Red Jacket manager Dave Beaudoin said he wasn’t surprised by the support the hotel received during the controversy.
“North Conway is a tourist destination and there was an outpouring of support from the local restaurants, from other hotels, that people, I think they could see that this is not as much of an isolated incident; that they could be affected as well in future plans.” [Dave Beaudoin 6]
The permit controversy has not yet been solved completely, but the hotel has until June to make the situation right.
For NHPR News, I’m Richelle Elberg in North Conway.
