Dollywood, Gaylord to Build Park Near Old Opryland Site

Nashville is getting a new attraction near the former site of Opryland theme park. Country star Dolly Parton and Nashville-based Gaylord Entertainment are partnering to build a water and snow park.

Parton opened her popular Dollywood theme park in the Smoky Mountains in 1986. Now her Dollywood Company and Gaylord have agreed to split a $50 million start-up investment for the attraction in Nashville. Parton says it will add around 450 full- and part-time jobs.

“It’s important because this is going to provide work for this part of the country. Not just the building of it, but the folks that will be employed there. This is just phase one. There will be lots of other businesses on that hundred-plus acres of land that we’re going to be working with.”

Parton expects the park to break ground in a year or so. Once it opens in 2014, its first full season is expected to draw half a million visitors.

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Officials say the seasonal park announced today is just a first phase, and they’re leaving room to grow: the property, across McGavock Pike from the Opryland Resort and Convention Center, on the other side of Briley Parkway, leaves dozens of acres open for an expansion.

It’s been about fifteen years since Opryland USA closed and became Opry Mills Mall. Gaylord Chairman and CEO Colin Reed says many Tennesseans never let that go, and the company has wrestled with the decision.

“The closing of that theme park was a real bad idea because, what happened was, it took customers that came for two to three days to Nashville – people with families – to this neck of the woods, and it replaced them with customers that come two to three hours to a shopping mall next door.”

Reed says the new water and snow park, which hasn’t been named yet, won’t be a straight reincarnation of Opryland. Instead it will have slides in summertime and sledding in winter.

For perspective, the $50 million Dollywood and Gaylord are spending on that first phase is less than a third the proposed cost for a cancelled Bible-themed park in the Murfreesboro area a few years ago.