The North Sound is bringing big business to the table—quite possibly including a water park that would rival Wild Waves.
Construction is booming in Tulalip.
"It gets pretty hectic when I get a long line of people,” Ryan Gobin told us from inside the food truck he operates on the Tulalip reservation.
The reservation has been steadily growing over the last several decades, so Gobin is just months away from hiring two or three employees to help run "Ryan's Rez-ipes."
Busy is about to become even busier though because the tribe has a slew of projects in the works.
"What we're looking at over here will be our Quilceda Creek 120,000-square-foot casino,” explained Les Parks, treasurer of the tribe’s board of directors.
He took us on a tour of the new “Q” casino which will replace the old one they’ve outgrown.
More news from KIRO 7
- Spanaway dad shoots suspect crouched outside children's room
- Judge declares Seattle man's truck 'his home'
- Law allows some students to come back to class -- even after arrests for loaded guns, threats
- Mom calls school assignment racist
- 'Serial killer' admits to killing three Seattle-area men in jihad-inspired crime spree
"We've expanded that building as much as we can with the building, the parking, the customer space -- we're bursting at the seams,” Parks told us.
And they still have thousands of acres of property to develop.
Parks says the tribe is in the midst of a feasibility study for a year-round indoor water park roughly the size of Wild Waves.
"It would be bigger than anything we have in the northwest corner of the country,” said Parks.
The tribe nearly partnered with a California company on the park project in 2004 but this time they will be sole owner and operator.
"Our membership told us -- directed us as board members -- to improve our tribal economy and that means you're not leasing ground out to outsiders."
But of course outsiders will be using it, along with, possibly an indoor golf facility.
The new casino will be completed in June 2019; the old one will come down and be replaced by more new development.
Cox Media Group
