I am sharing with you two recent investigative reports on our four new water parks, which had $5.6 million in operating losses during the first two seasons.
Ariana Parra of KFOX 14:
Armando Vélez of El Diario de El Paso:
https://diario.mx/el-paso/con-millonarias-perdidas-los-parques-acuaticos-20221016-1982738.html
What you will find in these two reports is that City is completely undisturbed by these catastrophic losses. They remind us that these amenities are a service to the community and were never meant to be profitable.
Let’s do a little math. The City’s recent audit of the water parks shows that there were only 98,158 visitors in 2021. There are four water parks that were open for 120 days, 11am to 6pm. That means that each park had average attendance of 24,539 people over those four months, which works out to 205 visitors per day or 29 per hour.
Yup, the water parks had very low attendance, much like our trolleys run empty all day long.
But it’s only our money.