Big Fat Bummer - Dallas Wave Opening Called Off
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 7:36 pm
The Grand Opening of the Dallas Wave scheduled for May 7 has been cancelled. 
A new date has not been set and it looks like the WW park may not officially open till July or August now. 
It's a long and complicated story, but here is the Cliffnotes version:
There are two construction projects going on simultaneously. One is the WW park. The other is the biking and hiking trail that passes by the WW park. They are run by two different project managers and two different contractors.
The contractor for the trail needs to build a bridge across the river and the bridge is right above the top wave. He doesn't want people paddling underneath the bridge while they work on it. I understand that, but I wish they'd used a little foresight and been working on the bridge for the past months. The top wave has been completed since late December.
In addition, some of the city's higher brass didn't want to open the park, then have to close down the top wave for a month or so while they worked on the bridge. They had a negative experience where they opened a park and then had to shut it down shortly afterwards and they got a lot of flack for that.
Bottom line is, the WW park opening is being held hostage by the trail construction.
On a more positive note, the WW park project manager is trying to get limited access for boaters. Possibly on weekends when there isn't construction going on. He had a meeting today with the trail contractor and is pleading our cause up the chain of command within the city government. We'll see what happens.
Obviously, I want to go down there as much as anyone. However, I think we should lay low for a couple of weeks and see what concessions the project manager can get for us. I'd hate for him to be making progress and then the other contractor complain again and the door gets shut completely. I want to give him some time to work through this.
Sorry for the bad news. I was really looking forward to throwing a great shindig for all of our out of state friends.
I'll let you know of any future developments.
BDD
A new date has not been set and it looks like the WW park may not officially open till July or August now. It's a long and complicated story, but here is the Cliffnotes version:
There are two construction projects going on simultaneously. One is the WW park. The other is the biking and hiking trail that passes by the WW park. They are run by two different project managers and two different contractors.
The contractor for the trail needs to build a bridge across the river and the bridge is right above the top wave. He doesn't want people paddling underneath the bridge while they work on it. I understand that, but I wish they'd used a little foresight and been working on the bridge for the past months. The top wave has been completed since late December.
In addition, some of the city's higher brass didn't want to open the park, then have to close down the top wave for a month or so while they worked on the bridge. They had a negative experience where they opened a park and then had to shut it down shortly afterwards and they got a lot of flack for that.
Bottom line is, the WW park opening is being held hostage by the trail construction.
On a more positive note, the WW park project manager is trying to get limited access for boaters. Possibly on weekends when there isn't construction going on. He had a meeting today with the trail contractor and is pleading our cause up the chain of command within the city government. We'll see what happens.
Obviously, I want to go down there as much as anyone. However, I think we should lay low for a couple of weeks and see what concessions the project manager can get for us. I'd hate for him to be making progress and then the other contractor complain again and the door gets shut completely. I want to give him some time to work through this.
Sorry for the bad news. I was really looking forward to throwing a great shindig for all of our out of state friends.
I'll let you know of any future developments.
BDD