PECOS, Texas — The City of Pecos and Reeves County officials held a public forum on Wednesday to determine the future of a $47 million waterpark project.
The proposed waterpark would be built near Cyclones Ballpark, with water being supplied by the city. The city has already done studies to make sure they would have enough water. They also did a study on how a waterpark wouldn’t burden the residents of Pecos.
Reeves County initially reached out two years ago to see whether or not they should go forward with the project.
“The county did it and brought in a consultant to check and see if it was viable to bring in something like that to Pecos," Pecos City Manager Charles Lino said. “The results of the surveys were approximately 97% positive rate from our citizen.”
Fast forward to today and two companies, Parkhill and Kimley-Horn, both presented their reasons for why they should be the winning bid for the $47 million dollar proposal.
According to consultant David Sangree, having two companies instead of one would allow residents to hear out different options that they wouldn’t have gotten to hear if it was only given to just one company.
“By having the competition, you're going to get some of those ideas out there that they might not have had if you just had picked one firm,” Sangree said.
The opinion of the public is one of the most important factors going into which company will be getting the winning bid.
“I think they're going to weigh on public input,” Lino said. “That's one of the reasons for having this public meeting, just to see what people think and get a little bit of feedback from them. Ultimately, it's going to be the commissioner's court that decides which one of the contractors to go with.”
While a high number of residents responded positively in initial surveys about this, city and county officials are hoping that this new waterpark will reach out to more than just Pecos residents.
“There really isn't enough residents alone to support an indoor waterpark,” Sangree said. “So the goal of the project is to create a tourist attraction for the county so that there would be a reason for people from Dallas or El Paso or New Mexico to come here to spend the weekend or to spend some days in the summer.”
Reeves County officials are also hoping on building a hotel around the waterpark if it is completed.
However, not everyone at the forum was so positive about the project, as city and county officials were peppered with questions from the crowd. Questions ranged from how would the proposal be paid for to how much water would be used to if the money could be used for other purposes in the city.
The city has answered these questions from the beginning of the project and will most likely continue to answer them in the future.
“Some were in disbelief. A lot of people were very high on it. We had a few that said it's not going to work here and that it's a waste of money,” Lino said regarding the initial reaction to the project. “You're going to get that with every project or project that you go through, but this one, with the approval rating that we got on the surveys, I see this as a slam dunk for the economic growth of our community.”
A decision regarding the waterpark project will be made in the upcoming days. According to Lino, a typical timetable for this type of project is around 18 to 24 months. Lino said a current estimated time of completion will be late 2026 to early 2027.