Serengeti Springs, the upcoming $10.5 million water park at the Hattiesburg Zoo, has been recognized worldwide by Bluloop, which, through its website and social media channels, highlight the latest news and trends at water parks, theme parks, aquariums and museums across the globe.
The publication recently published an in-depth article on the water park and zoo, which can be found online at https://tinyurl.com/5ym7duta. The article begins with some details on the park before going in to the origins of the zoo, its evolution over the years, new additions and more.
“I’m pretty taken aback that we were mentioned in Bluloop – that is the industry publication for the theme parks and attractions,” said Rick Taylor, executive director of the Hattiesburg Convention Commission, which runs the zoo. “If you get on their website, there’s all this stuff about Disney and these massive theme parks in China and Southeast Asia.
“So we were pretty amazed at their interest in us, and then the resulting story and the scale of it was surprising to me. We’re very appreciate and very excited about it. We’re honored that Hattiesburg was featured in such a robust format on Bluloop.”
Serengeti Springs, which was announced in August 2022, is located at the former site of Cameron Field, on a 3.5-acre plot of land on Kamper Park that borders Hardy Street to the north, Park Avenue to the west and Gordon’s Creek to the east. Cameron Field, in turn, has been relocated to Jaycee Park.
Construction of the water park is taking place in two phases. Work on Phase I, which began last summer – will include a Fusion Fortress Water Play Structure, an entry building with a gift shop and showers, a 150,000-gallon lazy river, a swim-up pool and bar, group pavilions, cabanas, food trucks, a staff office building, and loungers and Adrirondack chairs. The Fusion Fortress will consist of nine slides of varying heights, along with multiple water play areas and two bucket dump stations.
Underneath the Fusion Fortress will be a Life Floor, which provides a cushioned floor that is anti-microbial and will hold no standing water. The Life Floor will feature an additional 19 spray toys.
As an expansion of the zoo’s Africa section, the fortress will feature a design that highlights the animals and environments of that area. In keeping with that, Serengeti Springs also will offer special animal presentations, along with tropical animals who will live at the park.
Work on Phase II of the water park will begin anywhere from two to four years after the opening of Phase I. That phase will consist of a tower of four water slides.
Although officials had hoped to complete Phase I this summer, the recent rains have put a hamper on those plans.
“We’re still looking at what will be our opening date; we don’t have that set yet,” Taylor said. “We’ve got quite a bit still left to go – once the apparatus that you can see from Hardy Street is finished, we’ve still got another set of concrete aprons to go around the perimeter of that, where all the cabanas will go.
“Then obviously, some of the support buildings, you can see they’re in various stages on construction. But if we’re lucky, it may be the very tail end of summer.”
The $10.5 million price tag for Serengeti Springs will be funded by the Hattiesburg Convention Commission’s earned revenues, along with the existing 2-percent restaurant tax at Hattiesburg restaurants. The water park will be designed to be self-sufficient and profitable.
As far as parking, the zoo will continue its shared agreement for parking space with Hardy Street Baptist Church, in addition to the zoo’s current parking.
“Not only am I excited about it, when I look at it I think “this is beautiful and it’s such a great location,” Taylor said. “For the last few weeks, all I can think is ‘gosh, we need a water park – it is so hot.’
“So all of that fits together, and the commentary that I’m getting from the public is that it just takes time to build these. I’ve gotten no negative comments – just positive saying ‘hang in there; we can see this is going to be great.’”
For more information on Bluloop, visit www.bluloop.com.
