Schlitterbahn Slides Into Galveston

Despite design changes, weather challenges and a devastating fire, Schlitterbahn will slide into Galveston in December opening its third water park in the state. The newest member of the Schlitterbahn trio is the first park with closeable sections that make it an indoor-outdoor, year-round entertainment destination.

By Jennifer Hiller

An aerial view of the 26.4-acre waterpark site, owned by the city of Galveston. (Photo courtesy Gilbane Building Co.)

Change has been the name of the game at the new Schlitterbahn in Galveston, where Houston-based Gilbane Building Co. is overseeing construction of the state's first indoor-outdoor water park.

The $35 million park is located on 20 acres leased from the city and six acres leased from Farmer's Marine Copper Works. It is the third Schlitterbahn water park in the state. The first was opened in New Braunfels in 1979 and the second opened in 2001 on South Padre Island.

The 12-acre park has gone through numerous design changes during construction.

"We don't have a 100 percent finished plan," said Bob Walcott, project manager with Gilbane Building Co. "We've been designing and building as we go. It's not a design-build project, but some of it has turned out to be design-build."

The park site is near Moody Gardens, the Lone Star Flight Museum and the city's airport. The indoor portions of Schlitterbahn will open by December, and the entire park will open by mid-2006.

Ongoing design changes, along with a fire at the site, have kept architects, engineers and construction crews hopping since last summer.

A historic airplane hanger at the site burned to the ground in 2004 while the project was in the design phase. The 1940s-era hanger had been the focal point of the park's architecture and was expected to house the main beaches, restaurants, utilities and pumping equipment.

"We had to basically scrap everything we were working on before because the hanger building was essential," said Julian Pittman, project architect with Houston-based Jackson & Ryan Architects.

Architects redesigned the park to feature tent-like structures and a "castle" structure at the center that houses public areas and the bulk of the park's mechanical and pumping equipment.

advertisement

Site work started in November 2004. The Houston office of Walter P. Moore, which handled civil and structural engineering at the park, first had to relocate a large storm ditch that ran through the center of the property.

Mac Ruffeno, civil project manager with Walter P. Moore, called the storm ditch the main complexity of the project sitework. "We had to maintain capacity," he said. "That ditch drained a major portion of the airport property. We had to route it around the project. That was the most important thing for the surrounding population. There were quite a few existing utilities that were owned by the city that we needed to remove or relocate."

Then the low-lying site had to be raised for storm-flooding protection. An initial elevation of 4 ft. was raised with fill dirt to between 9 and 10 ft. throughout most of the park, while the buildings sit above 12 ft., Ruffeno said.

A 480-ft.-long, open-flume water slide is positioned on temporary supports 50 ft. above a concrete river channel at Schlitterbahn Galveston Island Waterpark. Photo courtesy Schlitterbahn Resorts.

The water park is designed to withstand wind speeds of 130 miles per hour, while the tent theming above the castle building is designed as a temporary structure.

"There are three rivers that each feed into each other," Pittman said. "The castle structure serves as a large equipment room housing all of the behind-the-scenes equipment. Above ground it's a public space with concession stands, lockers and seating spaces."

The park's three-river system is modeled after the original Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels. An estimated 4,000 ft. of cast-in-place concrete rivers have a typical width of 20 ft. "The whole park is interconnected," said Bob Walcott, Gilbane project manager. "You can go from river to river without getting out of your tube the entire time. The rivers have been a challenge with all of the curves."

By August, 156,000 sq. ft. of tiling work had started on the rivers. "We're pushing real hard to get the water done so we can start testing it," Walcott said.

Erik Earnshaw, project manager for Beeler Guest Owens Architects of Dallas, said his firm looked at some historical buildings that were built around the San Marcos and New Braunfels area at the turn of the 19th Century and tried to "extrapolate from that into the project."

"We have some parapet walls on top of it and varying balcony designs," Earnshaw said. "We wanted it to fit into the nearby town square and the buildings around the area."

Firm senior partner Jerry Beeler designed the building and senior partner John Guest developed the master plan.

Brick on the first level links the new buildings to the church. Stucco and Hardi-Plank siding face the upper levels, and the roofs are composite shingle. The overall layout of the structures is notched to prevent presenting a monolithic façade that would dwarf the church. About 80 percent of the project cost is in concrete, underground utilities and rides, he said.

The main castle building, which Walter P. Moore is overseeing, is a cast-in-place concrete structure with basement sump area to house the pumps and mechanical equipment that create the flow of water around the park. All three river channels go through the castle, which includes a structure to feed the surfing wave generator and wave pool. A combination of mat foundation and continuous wall footing was used to support the structure.

Karim Zulgiqar, structural project manager with Walter P. Moore, said the walls had to be designed to resist water pressure. "We don't design a typical building for water pressure," he said. "Crack control was an issue. We design in a way that we minimize concrete cracking so that even the chlorinated water won't affect it."

Schlitterbahn's indoor section will include tube and speed slides, a hot tub, a children's activity pool and the Tidal Wave River and Beach. In the winter, water and air will be heated in the mornings with blast furnaces.

A 30-ft.-wide covered area over the Tidal Wave River runs 1,200 ft., while the beach cover is 130 ft. by 160 ft. Both structures will use a combination of aluminum frame and poly-carbonate panels, which cost $2.5 million. The translucent panels will allow natural lighting in the covered areas.

"The fabric roof lets some light though like at Reliant Stadium," said Stephen Hegyesi, project manager with Walter P. Moore.

In addition to the water rides, Gilbane is constructing nine buildings onsite, including the $1 million, 24,000-sq.-ft. castle building. Two large entry buildings, one 4,300-sq.-ft. and the other 4,400-sq.-ft., will hold concessions, a photo shop, cash-control rooms, retail space and ticket booths, dressing rooms, lockers and restrooms. There will also be two food and beverage buildings, two restroom buildings and two electrical buildings.

And because crews work outside 100 percent of the time, weather is always an issue. "November through January was tough," Walcott said.