The Arizona Republic reports that the $750 million waterpark/commercial/hotel development in Mesa named Waveyard has been stalled indefinitely due to lack of available financing. The project was slated to be a water-themed amusement park boasting the world's first truly surfable man-made waves. The developers planned it as a mixed-use project with hotel and retail complementing the water park. I'm guessing in this extremely difficult commercial real estate environment that they haven't been able to secure the retail tenants (or perhaps the hotel) that they need to lock up their financing to build the project. And even if they had the tenants, financing is still very difficult to obtain.
According to the article, the developers have until January 2010 to secure their financing and purchase the development site (the former Riverview Golf Course site and surrounding ballfields that the voters of Mesa approved for sale to Waveyard back in 2007). As with CityScape, the developers are trying to put on a happy face, mentioning that they are still paying their employees who are working on the pre-construction work and are working on deals to build sister amusement/water parks in Dubai and South Korea.
Unfortunately, both Dubai and South Korea are also suffering heavily from the worldwide economic slowdown. Dubai is seeing their massive real estate bubble pop and their sovereign wealth funds decimated by their investments in U.S. and European securities - leaving them with less government money to fund their tourist development projects. South Korea has seen significant devaluation of the won and has an even higher level of consumer debt than the U.S. Neither region seems ideal for starting a large tourist development - as consumer spending drops precipitously in both areas.
Nevertheless, if I had to guess where the concept will show up first, it is in Dubai. Their government has shown it is willing to fund unique tourist projects (as witnessed by projects like this). As for Mesa, I have a feeling that the expected worsening of the commercial real estate market over the next year may kill Waveyard here. Hopefully not, as it makes a lot of sense to have a top-level waterpark in a place that is hot for so many days out of the year. Big Surf and Sunsplash just don't seem to cut it...
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