Next up for the city that brought you a faux downtown nightlife district and artificial whitewater rapids: a park full of machine-made snow, featuring sledding, tubing, snowboarding and general frosty frolicking on the grounds of SouthPark mall.
This weekend, a group of local investors plans to start building SnowPark USA at Symphony Park, in the back corner of the mall property. Scheduled to open in early December, the $1.8 million project is intended to bring the fun of snow to a region that rarely gets to experience it, said Cliff Springs, the park's marketing director.
By that count, Charlotte certainly qualifies: The area receives measurable snowfall only about once a year, with an average accumulation of about 5 inches a year over the last 10 years.
SnowPark's operators plan on overcoming that hurdle by spraying their own fluffy white stuff. Two portable ice plants generally used in the fishing industry will generate up to 100 tons of ice per day, which will then be processed through a crusher/blower and turned into snow.
The units can produce enough snow to blanket a football field 2 inches deep per day, and work in temperatures up to 72 degrees, Springs said. Temperatures are forecast to be in the 60s today.
The goal is to produce a 6- to 12-inch base and refresh it, with the machines using and recycling about 20 million gallons of public water through the park's season -- which is supposed to last through at least February, Springs said.
The park will extend from the Symphony Park lawn onto 6-foot-tall bleachers in the parking lot, to create a hill with sledding runs of up to 300 feet. It will start with five sledding runs and expand to 10 as snowmaking ramps up.
"It will be a very snowlike experience," Springs said. "It won't be like you're tubing on ice cubes."
Though meant to evoke weather abundant in many Charlotte transplants' hometowns -- hello, Buffalo, average annual snowfall 90-plus inches! -- the park was actually inspired by Snow Mountain. That attraction debuted last year in, yep, Atlanta.
As at Snow Mountain, the wintry merrymaking doesn't come for free. A two-hour session at SnowPark will cost $35 per person at regular price, though the total cost will probably come in closer to $25 when group rates and discount coupons are factored in, Springs said. Except for snowboards, equipment is provided in the price of admission.
The park's season will run through February or March, Springs said, and it will generally be open when kids are out of school. It's also likely to host groups and is soliciting other ideas. The hope is to appeal to "staycationers" wanting to have fun closer to home, he said.
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