Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Kalahari

I'm going to put together this page to link to all of the city flyers and Kalahari publications related to bringing the resort to Fredericksburg in the Celebrate Virginia South tourist zone. For instance, I have not been able to find the original Silver/Kalahari mailing anywhere online. As the city releases more info on their incentives package, I'll try to come back to this site and update.

Kalahari is already starting to advertise for the Fredericksburg site. On their main website it is link #3:
http://www.kalahariresorts.com/va/

Incentive Letter to Fredericksburg City:
http://www.fredericksburgva.gov/notices/LOI_Kala_final_0108.pdf

If you pull up the city comprehensive plan, you can see that this zoning is consistent with the long term planning of the city.http://www.fredericksburgva.gov/citypubs/Comp_Plan08_FINAL_HiResPhotos.pdf

Oh, and in case you're interested, there are two Appendixes that go along with the comprehensive plan. Appendix B includes traffic analysis (hopefully this will be updated again soon):
http://www.fredericksburgva.gov/citypubs/Comp_Plan08_Appendix_B_Final.pdf

These images are of the mailer Silver and Kalahari sent out to area residents. It has the business reasons for building the area. Kalahari's business execs will be studying these, putting together their business plan for their banks, and making sure that this is a sound financial decision for them.






Take a closer look at page 4:


This is what the city reports the area zoning. Most of CV is C-SC (shopping center). Some areas are still zoned R-1.


In response to an editorial in the Free Lance-Star on 2/6 that sarcastically talked about what conventions would come to this new attraction, I offer this video of surfing at the other resorts. That editorial seemed to think that Harley riders are all tattooed thugs, not realizing that many Harley riders these days are doctors and lawyers, most with families. Let's take an honest look at what it realistically will bring to the area. I hope this includes surfing competitions.

Surfing Video:












Finally, next we need to put some energy into evaluating the post Kalahari decision, we should start putting together the impacts the region needs to deal with.

  • Increased competition for hourly workers
  • Treatment of 50,000 gallons of chlorinated (or other chemically treated) water from the park
  • The impact of putting that water back into the Rappahannock (pH modification)
  • Replacement of the missing landscaping (runoff from the parking lots and buildings can impact local ecosystems)
  • Light Pollution
  • Improving traffic flow (diverting traffic to Celebrate Virginia through roads best designed to handle out of town traffic, updating signage, removing bottlenecks )
  • Added services Health/Medical/Police/Fire

This list is in no particular order, and it should grow as more info comes in from businesses and city departments.

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