The West Des Moines City Council this week gave its nod to an agreement with the developer behind the $400 million multiuse Grand Experience, a project that city officials said will spur other development and create amenities that will help companies draw and retain talent to the region.

The council voted Monday evening to approve the development agreement with Jim Bergman of WDM Entertainment.

According to the development agreement, the project will be located on 110 acres along Grand Avenue west of Interstate 35. It will include a 78,000-square-foot indoor water park, a 20,000-square-foot family entertainment center, a 34,000-square-foot conference center and a 260-room hotel. It would also include 150 workforce housing units, market-rate multifamily housing and retail, office and commercial space.

If approved, construction could begin in late 2025, but it could take up to 10 years to be fully built out, staff reports state.

The city has offered an incentive package that would include a 20-year, 100% tax increment financing rebate valued at $85.5 million to help cover a funding gap identified by the developer. Under the agreement, Bergman would also receive two-sevenths of the hotel/motel tax collected from the water park for 20 years, generating about $5.7 million during that time.

Ryan Moffatt, the city’s director of community and economic development, said it’s one of the largest incentive packages the city has done.

The deal also comes with public improvements that include rebuilding and widening Grand Avenue to six lanes from I-35 to 60th Street and Jordan Creek Parkway; reconstructing Booneville Road west of South 60th Street to South Jordan Creek Parkway; and other traffic management improvements in the area.

Those improvements have an estimated cost of $25.5 million.

Under the deal, Bergman will donate 5.39 acres on the south side of Grand Avenue and east of the MidAmerican Energy Rec Plex for future parking.

Moffatt said the project will increase the property tax revenue at the site. For example, the parcel where the water park, hotel and conference center are planned generates about $1,600 a year as an open field. Once those amenities are built it will generate $4 million a year, Moffatt said.

“Other spin-off benefits from a financial perspective are increased hotel/motel sales tax revenue, franchise fee revenue, then there’s things people might not think about as much such as increases in water treatment fees, increases to our local option sales tax dollars on a site that today is a cornfield,” he said.

The next steps in the project are Bergman completing his acquisition of the property, which is currently owned by McKinney Farms LC. McKinney also sold the land to the city where the Rec Plex is located and to Des Moines University for its campus, Moffatt said.

Once the sale closes, the city will consider an amendment to its zoning code to get “zoning of the property in order with the latest concept and iteration of the plan,” Moffatt said.

He said that would likely happen in spring 2025.

The design and development work on the waterpark portion of the project will take about a year, with construction possibly beginning in 2026. Bergman was given a two-year construction timeline, so it could open in 2028, barring any delays caused by financial or supply chain issues.

He said a market study by the developer has shown the Grand Experience could draw more than one million visitors a year.

“So this kind of cements in the continuation of attractions that we’ve already got with the Jordan Creek area just a mile up the road,” Moffatt said. “So in addition to that regional attraction piece of this, it’s a quality of life amenity not just for West Des Moines but for the entire region.”

He said the Grand Experience along with other attractions going on in the metro make the region more attractive to prospective companies and employees.

“These are the kinds of things that people really do look at when they’re trying to attract a workforce here,” Moffatt said. “With all these attractions happening all over the metro, all that feeds into the greater good to become a talent pipeline attraction.”