Volume 3, No. 15. August 8,2003
New Arrivals
It’s
a camp campus!
SeaWorld
San Diego in California announces the arrival of SeaWorld Adventure Camps, July
20, 2003. Measurements: two acres, a 3,795-square-foot (352.5-square-meter)
single-story building containing three classrooms and a multi-use auditorium,
a 16,630 square-foot (1,545-square-meter), two story dormitory with eight rooms
containing beds for 128 campers and 12 counselors, a 690-square-foot (64-square-meter)
food service area, a 250-square-foot (23-square-meter) wet suit storage room
2,000-square-foot (186-square meter) grassy recreation area, 400-square-foot
(37-square-meter) picnic area, and 700 cubic yards (535 cubic meters) of concrete.
Delivered by Jeff Katz Architecture.
For
Joy Wolf, a 25-year veteran of SeaWorld San Diego and now the park’s director
of education, the opening of the new Adventure Camps facility near Shamu Stadium
is the realization of a dream dating back more than 10 years. Yet, it’s
not the dormitory, the dedicated classroom space or even the multi-use auditorium
that thrills her most. It’s the grass.
“Having
your own grass is great," she said. "When you’re in camp, that’s
a critical element to have free time where you can run and play and have camp
games. Grass areas, as we’ve grown as a park, have gotten smaller. Now
we have our own grass, and park operations can’t run us off to host a picnic
or something.”
Rest
rooms, too; campers have their own instead of using the park’s public rest
rooms. Plus, park guests now don’t have to put up with camp songs. “We
sing a lot, and the purpose is to keep (campers) together,” Wolf said.
“We always thought of the park as our whole camp.”
Having
a facility dedicated to campers—complete with grass and sidewalk—makes
SeaWorld San Diego’s setup unique among zoos and aquariums. Busch Gardens
in Tampa, Florida, and SeaWorld San Antonio in Texas have modified buildings
for campers, but San Diego’s is a veritable campus. The park began offering
day camps in 1980 and sleepovers in the early 1990s. At that time, the park
began visioning a weeklong camp program. “We had to make it profitable,
we had to build the business,” Wolf said. That not only meant building
camp credibility (SeaWorld is a member of the American Camping Association),
but also designing a facility that would return handsomely on its investment.
The Adventure Camp, once camp season is over at the end of the season, will
then become available as corporate meeting space, and the park is negotiating
with Asian schools to use the facilities for residency programs.
For
now, though, Wolf’s new complex is a “dedicated area where education
and camp come first—they have to ask US to move.” The park hosts two
adventure camps, Ocean Adventures for fourth and fifth graders, and Ocean Animals
for sixth through eighth grade. The two-story dormitory allows the program to
separate ages or genders, as necessary.
The first 102 campers arrived that first Sunday with wide eyes and jealous parents. “The first thing parents said was, ‘Can I go, too?’” The park did not stage any formal opening—the official dedication is set for September 26 after the camp season concludes—but the facility’s inauguration generated much attention. “We prayed a lot,” Wolf said. “We had all hands on deck, all the managers were out there to make sure it went smoothly.” This on a week when the park was also hosting 300 day campers at the complex, as well. Aside from a few typical hiccups, the first week of residency camp proved successful for both the campers and the park. “I had goosebumps the whole time,” Wolf said. “We’re exhausted to a certain extent, but after two weeks of good operations, I’ve been sleeping well this week.”
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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