Hotel at Fort Rapids Waterpark suffers massive fire days after approved sale

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Three days after the sale was approved to turn a former indoor waterpark building into affordable workforce housing, the Columbus Division of Fire responded to a massive fire to the property.

According to Fire Chief Jeffrey Geitter, crews were called 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. When firefighters arrived, a significant fire was spotted from the rooftop of the two-story hotel section of the resort.

The building has been boarded up, making it difficult for crews to fight, Geitter said, and while the fire has caused significant damage to the vacant building, the damage does not equate to a total loss.

No injuries have been reported, but Columbus Fire said it will be some time before the blaze is extinguished, and only then can an investigation begin to determine a cause.

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 have already invested nearly $500,000 in upkeep.

The property was declared a public nuisance by Columbus City Attorney Zack Klein in 2021 and the deserted waterpark 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.

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