What does the off-season look like for Grant County’s seasonal businesses?

Fall is in full swing, and many summer businesses in Grant County have closed up shop for the season. 

While some places, like the Marion Splash House, are officially closed, others, such as Voss Landworks, are still finishing up projects. 

“We are currently on the Marion park job, finishing up here,” Timothy Voss, co-founder of Voss Landworks, said.

Voss Landworks has opened a number of parks in the surrounding Grant County area, including Matthews, Marion and Upland. 

“(The Upland project) was fun. That was a large-scale job downtown, revitalizing the community,” Voss said. “It’s cool to see the year after, how they’re building around it and Taylor (University) is investing more downtown, and a lot of where the park was helped with that.”

The Marion Splash House officially closed on Labor Day.

“I always measure the summer based on how safe it went. In that regard, it was a very safe summer for us, so that’s something I’m always proud of. Our staff is very good about that, so that’s most important,” said Splash House Director Andy Davis. 

The Splash House hosted a multitude of events this summer, including a fourth of July special, Splashability and a puppy pool party. 

“Splashability is an evening in July which we cater towards guests with special needs, as well as their families and caretakers, so it’s a more kind of calm, relaxing time where it’s not as crowded,” Davis said. 

Despite closing or wrapping up operations for the season, each business still has tasks to take care of in the offseason. Davis said a pool company comes to the splash house to winterize everything on the property. Davis also conducts the application and interview process starting in February, concluding in April. At that point he and his staff work on filling the pools to have the splash house ready and open by Memorial Day. 

In the landscaping offseason, Voss coaches a high school basketball team. Outside of that, he said there is about a month’s worth of office work per project, which occupies a lot of the time in the offseason.
“These parks take about a month of office work by itself to get ready for designs, the bidding process, traveling to the locations and back and everything that goes with that. It sets up our schedule starting March 1 to really attack everything, so we keep pretty busy still,” Voss said. 

Both Voss and Davis talked about plans for next year, with some still up in the air.

“We’re doing bids and starting that process right now, getting ready for some parks for next year, three in the Grant County community,” Voss said. 

Splash House projects include improving the look of the facility, in addition to planning events for next year.

“This fall, we’re having the wave pool painted. It has needed a face-lift for several years now, so we’re finally getting that done,” Davis said.