May 16, 2024
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Joliet Park District selling Splash Station Waterpark

Interested buyers expected to want the land for warehousing or trucking

By Bob Okon

Splash Station Waterpark, an outdoor water venue that provided summer fun at a perennial financial deficit, has been closed since Augut 2018. The Joliet Park District announced Friday that it will sell the property. (Eric Ginnard)

Splash Station Waterpark is for sale, and it’s not considered likely to be sold to a water park operator.

The Joliet Park District on Friday announced that Splash Station, closed since August 2018, is for sale.

The outdoor recreational facility is expected to be redeveloped for warehousing or trucking.

The Park District already rents out the site as an industrial truck parking lot, and potential buyers have not indicated any interest in reopening a water park, park board President Sue Gulas said Monday.

“We’ve definitely had interest,” Gulas said. “We get calls from real estate companies. Nobody was asking any questions about the water park.”

Splash Station was Joliet’s only outdoor swimming venue when the Park District, facing financial challenges at the time, decided not to reopen it for summer 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic kept it closed for the next two years, and the changing landscape along Route 6 has made prospects for reopening less promising, Gulas said.

The parking lot outside of Splash Station Waterpark has been converted to a truck parking lot. (Bob Okon)

“Since I got on the board in 2013, there was not ever a meeting where they expected it to break even,” Gulas said. “Even then it was bad.”

The Park District in 2019 decided not to reopen the water park unless the city of Joliet, which originally built Splash Station in 2002, would provide a $120,000 subsidy to cover the expected deficit at the facility. The Joliet City Council refused.

Route 6 already was an industrial corridor when Splash Station was built. Caterpillar Inc. had a thriving factory, which since has closed, and Ecolabs runs one of its largest production facilities not far east of the Splash Station entrance.

The industrial landscape has grown, especially with the opening last year of the Houbolt Road bridge , which connects Route 6 to the CenterPoint Intermodal Center at a spot west of the Splash Station entrance.

The park district will consider using proceeds from the Splash Station sale for other recreational venues depending on how much it goes for.

The list of possibilities include “some sort of water feature,” Gulas said. But she cautioned the possibilities would not necessarily be a swimming pool and definitely would not be a water park.

Water venues operated by the park district include three splash pads at parks around the city.