The Women’s Council of Realtors meeting on October 14 at the Baldwin County Association of Realtors dedicated to updating our local Baldwin County Realtors on what is going on with the Blue Collar Country Development and the Foley Sports Tourism Complex. The guest speaker was Chuck Corley Director of Operations for what was called Blue Collar Country. The official name hasn’t been released yet due to copyright and other legal fun stuff. Chuck has decades of experience working at a wide range of entertainment developments such as Disney, Six Flags, Cedar Fair, Sea World and Busch Gardens. Chuck and Creek Indian Enterprise Development Authority (CIEDA) vision is to have a themed entertainment park that has a family friendly atmosphere.
One of the things mentioned that will be on the 520 acre site is a theme park which will have around 23 rides, 7 kid rides, a drop tower and a few other different types of roller coasters, as well as a kids water park! The grounds will be enhanced by an 11 acre lake that runs into natural springs which will be surrounded with a circle of retail stores, dining and entertainment. They plan on having boutique and mom and pop type stores which will include glassblowing candle making and other homemade type shops. There is also talk about nightly fireworks shows!
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Creek Indian Enterprise Development Authority (CIEDA) is working with the city of Foley to put together the sports tourism part of the development. They are hoping to have an Event Center which will be around 114,000 sqft, 15 sports field and a championship field. There’s even talk that Governor Robert Bentley is going to push to start have all official state government meetings to be held at this new Event Center, which will be a fantastic source of tax dollars for the local economy, that all to often goes to our neighboring State of Florida.
A few other things we can expect is an RV Park with about 200 spaces and a few hotels. The park is estimating to bring in about 1400 new jobs. When is all this fun and excitement supposed to open you ask, good question! The WHOLE park will hopefully be open the end of 2017 or beginning of 2018. The park will open in phases which as of right now as long as everything goes according to plan and no setbacks occur they will have the theme park and a few retail stores, dining and entertainment partially open for 4th of July weekend 2016 which is phase 1! The 2nd phase which includes the water park and the rest of the retail, dining and entertainment will be open 2017!
It’s said that the entertainment park and sports tourism will be the biggest thing that’s happened in Alabama in the last 50 years! A feasibility report that has been done and is estimating the park will have about 7 million visitors in its first year fully open, 2018!! Lastly lets clear up a few of the rumors! There will be no gaming machines or casinos, also Blue Collar couldn’t pay the Poarch Creek Indians, who are financing the development. Thus, Blue Collar is no longer a part of this project.
Foley Sports tourism Complex information update provided by Casey Thompson of Jason Will Real Estate 261-866-6464.
