It’s hoped that a planned expansion of Beech Bend Park will bring an additional 200,000 visitors a year to Warren County.

“That’s what we need to pay for this,” park owner Dallas Jones said Friday in unveiling his plans for the more than $5 million expansion of the water park and improvements to the amusement park.

Jones said he hopes to pull heavily from the Nashville, northern Tennessee area, which could mean overnight visits for area hotels.

With the hoped-for additional visitors, it will mean nearly 1 million people flowing through the gates of Beech Bend Park and Raceway each year. The racetrack had more than a half-million visitors last year and the park about 250,000, Jones said.

To draw in visitors, the park has made improvements over the years, including the most recent addition of the Sea Dragon ride once owned by Michael Jackson.

“This is a huge undertaking for us,” said Charlotte Gonzalez, Jones’ daughter. “But we have grown at a pace where we think we can afford it. We keep up with the loans, pay them off and then do more.”

Most of the money for this project will be coming from Old National Bank in Greenville, where Jones was born and raised.

Jones said the bank has been with him on numerous projects over the past 35 years. The Jones family has a racetrack now in Tennessee and had others elsewhere before Beech Bend.

Gonzalez said she has been dreaming about the water park expansion for nearly two years.

The three-acre expansion will include a wave pool that will have eight wave chambers and different wave patterns. A lazy river that will encircle the addition will actually run through the wave pool.

Sunscreen, inner tubes and parking will be free for the new attraction, but gate prices are likely to go up, Gonzalez said.

For now, Jones bragged, residents could get one of the best bargains around on a preseason purchase of a pass – $79.95 for an entire season.

Even before the plans for the water park were finalized, Jones already had committed to adding two rides to the park – a family tea cup ride and a quad runner for small children. On Tuesday, he finalized plans to add a new amphitheater.

“You see where this says Beech Bend Park Theatre, that would look good with some other name there such as Houchens or IGA Theatre,” he said, pointing to a rendering on Friday.

Some representatives of Houchens Industries were in the audience at Friday’s announcement.

In addition to the new visitors the park will bring in, about 50 new seasonal jobs will be created to help operate the water park and as many as 100 people are expected to help construct the project.

“I want to be able to use as many local workers as possible,” Jones said.

Coffey Construction of Russellville is expected to begin groundwork Monday, with the project complete by May 1 and ready for operations May 31.

Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon said the expansion will be a plus for the community.

“That sounds very exciting, and should be a major draw for tourism and entertainment for Warren County and southcentral Kentucky,” Buchanon said in an e-mail to the Daily News. “Beech Bend has been our biggest tourism attraction for many years, and this sizable investment will create new traffic for (southern Kentucky), fill more area hotel rooms and generate new cash flow to all of our local businesses. I would like to say congratulations to Dallas Jones, and thank him for his new investment and continued commitment to our area.”