COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Three days after the sale was approved to turn a former indoor water park building into affordable workforce housing, the Columbus Division of Fire responded to a massive fire to the property.
Crews went to the building formerly known as Fort Rapids Indoor Waterpark Resort at 11:45 p.m. Sunday night, when a witness said something was burning in the area, according to Battalion Chief Jeffrey Geitter. When firefighters arrived, a significant fire was spotted from the rooftop of the two-story hotel section of the resort.
The building was boarded up, making it difficult for crews to fight, Geitter said. While the fire caused significant damage to the vacant building, it did not equate to a total loss.
Daylight revealed the extent of damage to the hotel from the fire. Speaking with reporters around 12:30 p.m. Monday, Geitter said the building’s roof had collapsed. Firefighters remained on a ladder, spraying down through the hole in the roof, to make sure any hotspots were put out.
Investigators had not determined a cause of the fire yet, nor did Geitter have an estimate of the financial cost of the damage by Monday afternoon. He did confirm no injuries have been reported.
The Fort Rapids resort was recently sold to a real estate investor, Drever Capital Management, with plans to convert the buildings into affordable workforce housing. Maxwell Drever said his company has done over 200 apartment transformation projects, including an array of Columbus properties. But this project will be a tall task, as he said they already invested nearly $500,000 in upkeep of the abandoned resort.
The property was declared a public nuisance by Columbus City Attorney Zack Klein in 2021, and the deserted water park has continued to rack up code violations.
In June, Jeff Kern was ordered by the Franklin County Municipal Court’s Environmental Division to pay $199,000 in contempt fines to the city, as well as being hit with $1,000 in daily fines. When a warrant was issued for his arrest in August, his daily fines were increased to $2,000 and his bond was set at $2.5 million. He still owes the contempt fines, but they can be paid out of proceeds from the Fort Rapids sale, according to Klein’s office.
Kern has dealt with similar legal troubles elsewhere. In 2023, he averted a jury trial in Midland, Michigan, in a criminal case related to his failure to clean up the demolition site of a former Holiday Inn he owned.
Fort Rapids was ordered to close in 2016 after a series of code violations. In 2018, millions of gallons of water poured out of the hotel’s windows from a burst pipe on an upper floor.