IRVINE, Calif. — The moment still hasn't hit Mike Riedel yet.
As Riedel, the owner and president of Wild Rivers, walks around the brand new waterpark, a few people approach and shake his hand. Many offer congratulations.
But most of the steady stream of parents and kids giddily walking in to spend a day at the brand new waterpark are unaware of the 10 years of behind-the-scenes work that Riedel and his team did for this place to reopen.
"This place wouldn't have been open if I quit," he said. "I put in a lot of hard work."
After closing the first Wild Rivers on Sept. 11, 2011, Wild Rivers 2.0, as Riedel likes to call it, is finally open. Friday was the grand opening of the 20-acre waterpark at Irvine's Great Park.
"It's a dream come true," said Riedel to Spectrum News. "It's a weird thing because I always knew this was going to happen. I don't know why I always knew, but I just knew it."
The original Wild Rivers in Irvine opened in 1986. For over two decades, the Irvine waterpark was a fixture in Southern California’s theme park scene, bringing in over 300,000 to 400,000 visitors annually.
That run came to a slow end. In 2006, the Irvine Co., the owner of the land below the waterpark, notified Riedel that they would let the lease expire so they could build over 1,700 apartments.
Despite a community rally to save the waterpark and a four-year extension, the park closed in 2011 after 26 years of operation.
Recalling those days, Riedel said he never doubted that he would rebuild and reopen Wild Rivers, even if it took over 10 years.
“After our final extension ended in 2011, we had a lease with the county, then lost our funding. Then we got our funding back and lost the land and when we got a lease with the city, the Navy decides it can’t turn the land over,” he said. “It was always one thing after another.”
Riedel said he never wavered.
“There were low days,” he said. “There weren’t many of them. But I always said, ‘What do we do now?’”
Finally, Riedel and Irvine came together for a plan to build Wild Rivers 2.0 on a 20-acre undeveloped parcel at the Orange County Great Park.
The new $60 million waterpark is twice the size of the original and features over 20 water rides, slides and attractions.
Only one attraction has yet to open.
Even as the water park opens amid a severe drought and labor issues, Riedel said it’s a misnomer that people think they use a lot of water.
“It’s a little oxymoronic because a waterpark should use a lot of water, but we really don’t use that much water,” he said. “It stays in the cycle. We only lose a small amount due to evaporation and splash out.”
Staffing, he said, also hasn’t been an issue.
For the past month, Wild Rivers held a soft opening, and so far, the response from the community has been great, Riedel said.
He still has not caught his breath with the waterpark fully open.
“I haven’t had what I call the draft moment—the crying emotion. And I’m an emotional person,” he said. “I don’t want to take a lot of credit. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my team.”