El Paso city officials look at attracting hotel resort project to former Great Wolf Lodge site

El Paso city officials are looking again at trying to attract a Great Wolf Lodge-type venue to 44 acres of city-owned land along Interstate 10, near the West Towne Marketplace shopping center in far West El Paso.

A land deal collapsed that was expected to bring an Amazon delivery facility to the site, where Great Wolf Lodge in April 2020 canceled a proposed, city-incentivized hotel/water park project.

"We really want something different on that property," said Elizabeth Triggs, the city's director of economic and international development.

The West Town Marketplace shopping center can be seen from the city's vacant 44-acre site, at Interstate 10 and Paseo del Norte Boulevard (Artcraft Road), in West El Paso, as seen on Oct. 19, 2022. A Great Wolf Lodge and later an Amazon delivery facility had been slated for the site.  Both deals collapsed.
Vic Kolenc/El Paso Times

"Destination retail is something that we would consider, but we really are focusing on that experiential resort/destination entertainment kind of user" similar to the canceled Great Wolf Lodge project, she said.

Destination retail would be something akin to a giant Ikea store, she said. Ikea is the hip, Swedish furniture seller.

City officials are aiming at getting a project with convention space and a hotel because the city could use the state convention center and hotel program to provide state sales tax rebates and hotel tax rebates as incentives for building the project, as was proposed for the Great Wolf Lodge, Triggs said. Also, the city needs more convention and event space, she added.

The vacant land is at the busy corner of Interstate 10 and Paseo del Norte Boulevard (Artcraft Road), across the street from the booming West Towne Marketplace.

The site is available again because VanTrust Real Estate, a Kansas City, Missouri real estate development company, canceled a revised sale agreement with the city that would have sold 29.4 acres of the land to Van Trust for $12.5 million.

An Amazon delivery facility was expected to be built there.

Van Trust didn't state a reason for canceling the sale agreement in August 2022, Triggs said.

Van Trust officials declined to comment on the cancelation.

The city acquired the land from El Paso billionaire Paul Foster in a controversial trade for 2,313 acres of Northeast land that the city acquired from the city's Public Service Board, which oversees El Paso Water, for $18.6 million.

Foster is developing a huge, master-planned residential community named Campo del Sol on the acreage, located off of U.S. Highway 54 and McCombs Street, near the El Paso Water-owned Painted Dunes Desert Golf Course.

Triggs said the city has already started reaching out to companies in the destination entertainment/resort industry to gauge interest in the city site. But the sales pitch won't begin in earnest until the city gets an update of an earlier feasibility study done for the Great Wolf Lodge project, Triggs said.

Interstate 10 runs alongside the city's vacant 44-acre site, across the street from the West Town Marketplace shopping cent as seen Feb. 2, 2019 in West El Paso/ A Great wolf Lodge and later an Amazon Delivery facility had been slated for the site. But both deals collapsed. 
Vic Kolenc/El Paso Times

The city is paying JLL Valuation & Advisory Services, a Chicago real estate consulting firm, $240,000 to update its earlier feasibility and economic impact study for a water park resort on the city's 44-acre site and also to evaluate the feasibility of an amusement park somewhere in El Paso, according to information presented to City Council, which approved the new JLL contract in October.

City Council in 2018 approved a multimillion-dollar incentives package and the Foster land trade for Great Wolf to build a hotel resort there at an estimated cost of $150 million-$160 million.

The original JLL study concluded tax incentives were needed to make a water park/resort project feasible for the 44-acre site, according to city information.

Great Wolf officials told city officials in 2020 that financial challenges, tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, required them to cancel the El Paso project.

El Paso City Council in early 2021 approved selling the land to Van Trust, and that contract was revised in 2022 to reduce the acreage being sold from 44 acres to 29.4 acres at VanTrust's request. The sales agreement stated that a distribution center for a national retailer would be built there. A state document filed for VanTrust indicated Amazon was the national retailer.

Amazon in late 2021 opened a mammoth distribution center, known as a fulfillment center, in far East El Paso County. Fulfillment center packages are sent to smaller Amazon delivery facilities, for which the West El Paso site apparently was going to be used. Amazon officials do not comment on possible future facility sites.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter.