Water Park on Its Way

New Pflugerville water park will open for Memorial Day — at least partially

UPDATE: Hawaiian Falls announced that the opening of the Pflugerville water park will be delayed until Monday, June 9. Gates will open to season pass holders at 11:30 am, followed by general admission at 12 pm. Each guest will also receive a certificate good for 50 percent off a day pass for a return trip, and the certificate will be good at all seven of the Texas parks through the summer season. The summer season at the Pflugerville park will also be extended past Labor Day.

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A new summertime attraction will soon be available for residents North of Austin, and families will get a preview of what’s to come on Memorial Day Weekend.

Hawaiian Falls, a chain of water parks founded in Garland, Texas in 2003, is hard at work preparing its new water and adventure park in Pflugerville. During a community event on Thursday, Hawaiian Falls President David Busch told KXAN that the park will conduct a partial opening for Memorial Day, but the entire park will be complete by the time school is out on June 5.

Located near State Highway 130 and FM 685, the 25-acre park will boast the usual assortment of water slides and a floating river, along with the largest wave pool in Texas.

With its location in Pflugerville, Hawaiian Falls is looking to tap into a region with few water park options and plenty of hot summers to attract customers. Austinites may choose to take the drive north instead of going south to the original Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels. And with plans for a Schlitterbahn in Cedar Park still on hold, it appears that Hawaiian Falls will be the go-to option for quite some time.

Central Texas is still struggling through one of the state’s worst droughts, so Hawaiian Falls is intent on conserving as much water as possible. Busch told KXAN that the park is expected to use 10 million gallons of water a year, but 90 percent of it will be recycled.

The Pflugerville park be the largest water park in the Hawaiian Falls family, which includes seven parks in towns across Texas. The water park will be open each year from Memorial Day through the beginning of September. the adventure park section — an arcade, laser tag, obstacle course and zip line — will be open year-round.

The owners of the Hawaiian Falls expect to conduct a partial opening on Memorial Day Weekend and will be completed by tthe beginning of June.

orange and yellow slides at Pflugerville water park Hawaiian Falls

Photo courtesy of Hawaiian Falls Waterparks Facebook

The owners of the Hawaiian Falls expect to conduct a partial opening on Memorial Day Weekend and will be completed by tthe beginning of June.

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No Cap

Austin was a top destination for Gen Zers on the move for 2023

Photo by Neel Pramanik on Unsplash

Who wouldn't want to live in a Gen Z hotspot like Austin?

As Gen Z enters adulthood, many are flocking to the nation's biggest cultural hubs like New York City, Los Angeles, and now Austin, which had the one of the top 20 highest inflows of Gen Zers in 2023.

Austin's reputation as a Gen Z hot spot was unveiled in a recent report by American home improvement brand This Old House, which analyzed migration trends across multiple generations using 2023 U.S. Census Bureau data.

Austin saw an influx of 10,363 Gen Z residents last year to become the generation's No. 20 most popular city.

The city first gained traction as an up-and-coming destination for Gen Zers last year, when the "experience-hungry generation" was on the hunt for an affordable place to live with vast opportunities for entertainment, education, or employment.

Real estate marketplace Zillow seems to agree with this trend on a statewide scale; in February it declared Texas the No. 1 destination for Gen Zers on the move in 2024.

However, as Gen Z Austinites may have learned, it might take a big bite out of their paychecks to live in such a highly sought-after city. A March RentCafe housing cost analysis predicted Gen Z adults living in Austin are likely to spend more than $160,000 on rent by the time they are 30 years old.

While Austin saw big gains in its Gen Z population last year, many other big cities saw a mass exodus. Plano, for example — which gained 1,295 Gen Z residents in 2022 — lost 4,028 Gen Zers in 2023, the report discovered.

"The biggest Gen-Z exodus was in El Paso, with a drop of 5,607 — a sharp turn from 2022 when the city saw an increase," the report said. "Other cities, including Plano, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; McKinney, Texas; and Wichita, Kansas, are seeing similar declines."

The report also revealed that Austin is also one of the top destinations for millennials and Gen X, whereas both New York City and Los Angeles lost more residents among those two generations in comparison.

Austin had a net gain of 2,478 millennials in 2023, but saw net losses in its Gen X (3,240), baby boomer (1,178), and silent generation (1,390) populations.

"Gen X, baby boomers, and the Silent Generation are also moving away from major cities, particularly New York City and Washington, D.C.," the report said. "They’re heading to some of the same cities as Gen Z, including Houston and Jacksonville, Florida."

The top 10 cities that gained the most Gen Z residents in 2023 are:

No. 1 – New York City, New York
No. 2 – Los Angeles, California
No. 3 – Houston, Texas
No. 4 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
No. 5 – Chicago, Illinois
No. 6 – San Diego, California
No. 7 – Seattle, Washington
No. 8 – Charlotte, North Carolina
No. 9 – Dallas, Texas
No. 10 – Minneapolis, Minnesota

trends rent population growth population analysis