Baton Rougeans vacationing along Alabama’s Gulf Coast will have a new entertainment option as of Friday.
The Associated Press reports The Park at OWA—which features a roller coaster and 20 other rides as well as shopping, restaurants, a hotel and other amenities spread over 520 acres—will open just a few miles north of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores. It’s the first major amusement park to open along the Gulf Coast since Six Flags in New Orleans was closed after Hurricane Katrina swamped the park in 2005.
The park is owned by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, a tribe best known for its Alabama casinos. The project is an attempt to diversify its businesses from gambling into family entertainment.
OWA’s first two phases cost $241 million, the tribe said. The total investment is supposed to more than double in later phases as additional hotels, condominiums, a water park and RV resort are added.
A family attraction is a departure for the Poarch Creeks, who have casinos in the Alabama cities of Atmore, Montgomery and Wetumpka but did not include gambling in the current planning for OWA, a Muscogee Creek word that means “big water.”
“As a tribe, we have worked hard to ensure that our businesses bring revenue and jobs into the state and add to the quality of life in the rural communities where they are located,” the tribe’s chief executive, Stephanie A. Bryan, said in a statement announcing the park last fall.
