CORPUS CHRISTI (KIII NEWS) – The bankruptcy auction for Padre Island’s Schlitterbahn water park has been canceled, according to the company charged with selling the facility to satisfy creditors.
Harold Bordwin of Keen-Summit Capital Partners, based out of New York, confirmed to 3News Wednesday that the auction has been canceled as they seek offers to purchase the water park as is.
“It’s our expectation that it will create more value, which will help pay the creditors in this bankruptcy,” Bordwin said.
Bordwin said the company will continue to operate, including repairing damage sustained in Hurricane Harvey.
“The plan is that the hotel and water park, and the golf course, they are all open and operating and they will continue to be open and operating,” Bordwin said.
The company Upper Padre Partners defaulted on a loan payment, forcing foreclosure this month. An auction to liquidate the company assets was planned for next week. Schlitterbahn issued a statement about Wednesday’s news of the cancelation, saying they have confidence in the team operating the park and are planning for a successful 2018 season in Corpus Christi.
“We at Schlitterbahn continue to have confidence in the park and operating team in Corpus Christi – we have top people in place and we continue to plan for a successful 2018 season in Corpus Christi,” the statement read.
The park will open for the season as scheduled and there will be no immediate layoffs.
Padre Island residents are happy to hear the news.
“It’ll be good for business because we’ll have more tourists come,” Toby Suphachai said. “Especially for us.”
“I’m not surprised that it got into this condition, but I’m very happy that somebody’s going to continue to operate it. Try to make it a going concern,” Mike Biddle said.
“I’m sure I’d like to see lots of businesses here that can remain operating,” Barb Oelfke said. “I’d hate to see them disappear. We enjoy them when we come in the winter.”
“If it’s defunct and abandoned, I think it’s going to really hurt tourism out here,” Timothy Miller said.
Schlitterbahn is set to open for the season as scheduled on April 28.
