A 38-acre stretch of forest across from the Adventure Park at Virginia Aquarium will soon be its own, more laid-back attraction focused on connecting with nature.
Outdoor Ventures plans to open Owl Creek Landing this spring off General Booth Boulevard. CEO Bahman Azarm said it’s been in the works for a decade.
“When we built the Adventure Park in 2014 we were always going to be building Owl Creek Landing but it required the bridge over (the creek) to be built, and it required the South Building of the aquarium to be finished first. So that's why it took 10 years before we could start this.”
The land is owned by the city of Virginia Beach and leased through the Virginia Aquarium, which will also receive a portion of revenue, Azarm said.
Construction crews are days away from finishing the centerpiece of the new attraction: the Nautilus Tower. It’s a 65-foot-tall, 80-foot-wide spiral walkway made of galvanized steel that stretches above the treeline.
“As you're going up, you can see that you really do feel the area and the floor of the forest in a very different way,” Azarm said. “You see the leaves, you see the plantings, but there's some other connection that you feel with the woods when you're up here.”
The Adventure Park requires visitors to use harnesses and have certain physical abilities to participate, Azarm said.
Their goal is to make Owl Creek Landing more accessible, focusing on giving people a unique view of the natural setting “and some of the top of the trees that you wouldn't normally see unless somehow you were in a balloon or something,” he said.
The forest includes several species such as maple, oak and tulip poplar. The company plans to plant some new native trees like persimmons.
The site will include a series of ground-level paths as well as treehouses and suspended walkways between platforms situated in the trees.
All connect back to the central tower, which Outdoor Ventures says will feature the United States’ longest steel slide.
All of the equipment needed to construct the massive tower had to come over a narrow pedestrian bridge across Owl Creek. That constraint, as well as the site’s environmental sensitivity, led officials to try a new kind of foundation.
Outdoor Ventures flew its engineer to Austria to learn about the method. Instead of digging into the ground and pouring a traditional foundation, smaller slabs of concrete sit on top of the ground, reinforced with metal rods that spread out underground like tree roots.
Azarm said they hope to have a soft open in April and hold an official grand opening by Memorial Day weekend.
The grounds will be free to roam. Those who want to enter the tower or treehouse structures will have to buy tickets: $28 for adults and $18 for children.
