On home-makeover reality shows, the audience always gets to see the ‘before’ and ‘after’ images showing the full transformation of the lucky contestant’s home. It’s the satisfying payoff after investing an hour watching a program. Now imagine the lucky contestant’s home is an entire city. The investment is more than $8 billion and the ultimate payoff benefits everyone in Omaha. That’s a reality show worth watching, and its “live-streaming” right now throughout our city.
For tourism, all this new development means our team has a fresh product to sell, innovative experiences to promote, and new opportunities to entice leisure travelers, convention attendees, and sports fans to our city.
The RiverFront Park trifecta completely transformed the downtown area. The $325 million, 72-acre, three-park development features large, picturesque green spaces, one-of-a-kind playgrounds, water features in the summer, ice features in the winter, public art, an urban beach, and a cantilever overlook that shoots out over the Missouri River. Pair that with the creative, awe-inspiring Kiewit Luminarium. This 82,000-square-foot world-class discovery center offers more than 100 interactive exhibits for all ages. Within blocks, Steelhouse Omaha, Omaha’s newest music venue, opened this year to sold-out crowds.
And if that isn’t enough, there’s a second season to this development show. In 2024, Joslyn Art Museum re-opens after a two-year, $100 million expansion. Tranquility Park will start to undergo massive upgrades, giving Omaha the opportunity to attract new regional and national youth sporting events to our city.
So don’t change the channel—there are still a lot of ‘before’ and ‘after’ images to see, and the payoff will be worth the wait.
For more Omaha development that is making waves in tourism industry, go over to www.VisitOmaha.com/Development.
This article originally appeared in the October/November 2023 issue of B2B Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
