Abilene’s water park dream washed away

ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – If you’ve lived in the Key City long enough, you probably remember the old entertainment spot on Maple Street called Spinnerz. What was once a bustling go-kart track and arcade has been nothing but weeds and overgrown grass since shutting down decades ago.

Before its closure, though, there were splashy plans on the table: a water park that would have been Abilene’s only one at the time.

When Spinnerz closed, resident Stephen Tenison felt the loss like the rest of the community for the beloved spot.

“They were the only go-kart place in town. We all like to go on there because they were gas-powered, so they would go really fast compared to a lot of other places that you see now that use the electric ones,” Tenison remembered. “A lot of us were just kind of like, oh, that’s a bummer. You can’t go go-karting anywhere, really, anymore. A lot of people liked paintball, so they were bummed out about that one.”

What most people didn’t know was that plans were quietly underway to replace the track with a water park. In 1997, the City of Abilene approved the project, which promised water slides, a lazy river, a kiddie pool, and an eating area. But the vision never materialized.

Tenison said the location would have been the perfect spot to take a dip.

“With the location of where Spinnerz was, it probably would have been able to be, I don’t know necessarily bigger, but I feel like they could have had more room to do stuff, so it could have been really cool,” Tenison said.

That exciting vision is officially gone. The Abilene Planning and Zoning Commission has since changed the lot’s zoning to allow multi-family housing, closing the book on what could have been Abilene’s water park.