Fascinating wire story today on the waning popularity of whitewater rafting along the East Coast that somehow is never connected to Mecklenburg County’s very own $35 million Whitewater Center, which is due to open any day now on the Catawba River. The background:
Fewer people want to go rafting.
The baby boomers are aging and opting for more sedate activities, and Generation Xers or millennial boomers are drawn to such other sports as climbing, snowboarding, wakeboarding and motocross and have too many other things to do, said David Arnold, a co-partner in Class VI River Runners, one of West Virginia’s biggest and most successful outfitters.
Uh-oh.
Plus, there is the competition for the Catawba that will come from the newly free-flowing Cheoah River through the Nantahala National Forest near Robbinsville.
Recall that there are $13 million in public-sector loan guarantees to BoA and Wachovia to help finance the Catawba project. If the center does not attract enough paying customers, and expectations are for 500,000 visitors, Mecklenburg could be on the hook for $7 million and the city of Charlotte $2 million.
Such are the perils of striving to be a Destination Location — you give up control of your fiscal destiny.
