Beech Bend owner Dallas Jones and others today announced a multimillion dollar project to expand the water park and make improvements to the amusement park, all slated for completion in summer 2010.

“We aren’t going to be nearly as big as Holiday World,” Jones said, but he expects that one aspect of the expansion will be a big draw for the area – a 275,000-gallon wave pool.

“That will be our number one draw,” Jones said.

The park also will be adding an 1,100-foot lazy river where people float on inner tubes, plus a four-story tall play structure with seven water slides and dump buckets. The water park currently has five water slides, an Olympic-size pool and a small play structure.

Jones said they will make other improvements within the park as well, where a family tea cup ride will replace the old children’s tea cup and a quad runner will be added.

The park also will add a new amphitheater and dressing rooms for its stage shows.

Jones said the expansion will have an immediate economic impact with local workers being hired to begin the expansion. When construction is done in summer 2010, it also will mean the creation of 50 new jobs for the park.

Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Vicki Fitch was excited about the project that will add yet another thing to do in Bowling Green.

“The expansion plans for Beech Bend Park are an excellent addition to southcentral Kentucky’s tourism infrastructure,” Fitch said. “The more we have for tourists to do while they are here, the longer they will want to stay. Beech Bend has long been Warren County’s largest tourist attraction and with the additions, I expect their attendance numbers to skyrocket.

“The Bowling Green Area CVB is very appreciative of the investment Dallas and Alfreda Jones have made in Beech Bend Raceway, Park and Campground. The attraction is a contributor to the tune of $42 million a year to the tourism economic impact of Warren County,” she said.

In addition to the water park, Beech Bend features an amusement park with more than 40 rides, a raceway and a large campground. The raceway provides a majority of the visitors with car racing events nearly every weekend in all but a few months out of the year. Goodguys Nostalgia Nationals was added last year to the event listing that already included the National Hot Rods Reunion and many other major events.

The National Hot Rods reunion went elsewhere for a while but came back after a dispute over an entrance road was settled and the main entrance into the park, as well as the turning lane on Beech Bend Road, saw significant improvements. Settling the land dispute cost nearly $1 million, while the park road improvements were about $200,000 and the state spent about $300,000 on the public road.

This is not the first time large investments have been made in the park.

In 2005, Beech Bend spent $4.4 million to add the Kentucky Rumbler to its repertoire.

The 102-foot tall wooden roller coaster opened in April 2006.

This year the park added a swinging pirate ship that it purchased from Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch before the pop star died. Park owners, at the time, didn’t disclose the purchase price but said they also had to pay for some restoration of the ride that had sat unused for so many years.

As was the case with the Kentucky Rumbler roller coaster, Beech Bend will have a contest to name the new features at the park. Names can be suggested for the wave pool, lazy river and play structure. Entries can be submitted to beechbendpark@msn.com, with contest in the subject line. The person who suggests the winning name will get a family four park of tickets to the park. The contest ends on Dec. 31.