Though the newly-announced Soundwaves waterpark will be open only to guests of the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, officials say it will provide many part-time jobs.
Jenny Barker, a spokeswoman for the company, said that the exact number of part-time jobs created by the waterpark is not currently calculable.
The company hasn’t broken ground on the Soundwaves park yet. However, a release from last week announcing construction of the waterpark noted that the project is estimated to generate 699 full-time equivalent jobs once it is completed in fall 2018.
That doesn’t mean that all 699 of those jobs will be full-time. The “full-time equivalent job” metric simply represents 40 hours of labor.
The employer may hire a single full-time employee, two 20-hour-per-week part-time employees, or perhaps four students that each contribute 10 hours per week to add up to a single full-time equivalent position.
Essentially, the “699 full-time equivalent jobs” statistic means that Gaylord estimates that the Soundwaves waterpark will require an additional 27,960 hours of labor per week. Though some of that labor will be accounted for by the suppliers of the waterpark, the resort will have many positions to fill as well.
“We would love to be seen as an employer of choice among Lipscomb students,” said Barker, who is an alumna of Lipscomb’s communications department.
The waterpark will need lifeguards, as well as food-beverage staff for the new dining options that are part of the new project. Both of these positions will likely be filled by part-time workers. Lifeguards across the country make a median pay of $9.15 per hour, according to Payscale, a company that provides salary-surveying analysis for many professions.
Ryman Hospitality Properties, the real estate group behind Gaylord Opryland Resort, announced the $90.1 million Soundwaves project last Wednesday.
The indoor/outdoor park is tentatively set to open in fall 2018 with features such as a waterslide tower, lazy river and rock climbing, according to a release sent out on Wednesday morning. Poolside bars and lounges around the park will be open to adult guests.
The park is forecasted to generate a total economic output of $57.1 million per year. The current impact of the Gaylord Opryland Resort complex on the Tennessee economy is about $866.5 million.
At the initial press conference announcing the Soundwaves press conference, Ryman Hospitality Properties chairman and chief executive officer Colin Reed said in a set of prepared remarks that he expects the Soundwaves project to have an immense impact on the economy of Nashville as a whole.
“We believe through all of this we can materially increase our occupancy and drive more traffic to the Nashville area through this one-of-a-kind experience,” Reed said, “which of course means more tax revenue for our city and state, and of course a lot more jobs.”