Dollywood and Gaylord Entertainment have announced a joint venture to bring a water and snow park to Nashville.

Two of the biggest names in Tennessee tourism are teaming up to bring family entertainment back to Nashville. Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE: GET) and Dolly Parton’s Dollywood Company have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a 50/50 joint venture to develop a 105-acre family entertainment zone adjacent to the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. The Dollywood Company will serve as the operating partner. Phase one of the project is a yet unnamed $50 million water and snow park, the first of its kind in the U.S. A fall 2012 groundbreaking date is expected with the park opening slated for summer of 2014.

The water and snow park will anchor the project which offers room for future expansion. The park will provide a mix of high energy water activities for the summer season and designated snow activities for winter play. Once open, first year attendance is projected at 500,000, a large portion of which will come from out of state, bringing in substantial tourism revenue to Tennessee and Nashville. Dollywood expects to employ 450 full- and part- time employees, including the construction phase and once the facility is operational.

EDIT:

http://www.dollywood.com/press-c1-Press_Release_Listing.aspx

The URL you provided is redirecting to http://www.up0.net/images/ which in turn is producing a 404 Not Found error.

Yeah, I guess the link from my email did not work correctly, and I am unable to find the actual press release as of yet.

EDIT: And now its on Dollywood's press release site.. updated link.

Hope this works out very well for the people of Nashville. I had alot of fun at the old Opryland.

Not Expected To Match Opryland's Economic Impact:

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120120/BUSINESS01/301200067/New-amusement-park-not-expected-to-match-Opryland-s-economic-impact

I made it to Dollywood for the first time on December 30th, and I was really surprised by how great a park it is. It really does deserve the praise it gets. I'm excited to see how this snow/water park pans out, because I'm sure it'll be great.

...and Herschend, about which in this VERY interesting and well written article:

http://www.dnj.com/article/20120205/NEWS/302050016

Interesting... I did not know that Hershend operated Newport Aquarium.