DCist: D.C. Could Get A Giant Waterpark, But Where Would It Go?

A similarly proposed park in Toronto. Image: DCist.

From DCist:

“Wait, D.C. is going to get what?”

That may well have been your reaction earlier this month when Mayor Muriel Bowser made a grandiose announcement of a possible new attraction to come: a massive resort-like spa and waterpark, contained in what’s promised to be an architecturally striking building somewhere in the city.

Bowser and Therme, the Austria-based operator of well-being resorts in Romania and Germany (with new locations in the works in Canada and the United Kingdom), announced they would work together over the next year to find a suitable spot for what would be the company’s first such development in the U.S.

In a letter signed by Therme and the city and obtained by DCist/WAMU, the company pledged that its final product (provided it’s ever built), would be a “world-class, multi-acre, large-scale community wellbeing facility with indoor water recreation, botanical gardens, mineral baths, spas, restaurants, and world-class public, open spaces.” And Therme isn’t modest about its ambitions. The company says in the letter that when completed, the facility could post visitor numbers rivaling the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.