Ned O'Connor, president of Waterford Property Co. LLC, helped the village of 3,000 people set up the land for the park, and then acted as the consultant for the property's sale. He says the sleepy town never knew what hit them after Argosy Casino decided to locate there, but that the village figured getting land ready for more development was a priority. "They've this incredible revenue coming in, and they're on the river, so they bought 700 acres of vacant ground that used to be a flood plain. Then, they built this $120-million levy around the ground, primarily to protect the city, which did have a flood in 1993. Then, they struggled with what to do with the property."

He says he joined the project in 2005, and helped get a $40-million interchange on I-635. "That really brought the project to life," O'Connor tells GlobeSt.com. "They also built almost a highway off the interchange, four lanes wide."

However, he says the village realized that to have it developed right, a professional company would need to do it. "They took the property to the marketplace to get one private developer," he says. "They could have broken it into pieces and got more money, but in a single entities' hands, the quality of the park would be better." Last spring, the village received 35 proposals from companies from 12 different states, O'Connor says. "A lot of institutions answered, they had the financial wherewithal, but no development experience. A lot of developers didn't have money. Block had both."