Hotel could be next at MOA water park.

Byline: Matt M. Johnson

Documents submitted to the city of Bloomington ahead of a Nov. 7 Planning Commission meeting show that a water park planned next to the Mall of America could get its own hotel.

A massing study included with preliminary development plan documents show the hotel and other future, unidentified buildings surrounding the 250,000-square foot water park. An affiliate of Triple 5, which owns the Mall of America, and the Bloomington Port Authority are heading up the development.

If the water park project goes forward, the mall would lease land it owns north of the mall to the city and then the city would, in turn, lease the land to a nonprofit that would finance the construction of the water park, said Schane Rudlang, administrator of the Bloomington Port Authority.

The preliminary development plan is required to show possible future construction around the water park, Rudlang said in a Thursday interview.

"That hotel is probably the next thing that will get built," he said. "No one knows if it will get built or how big it will be."

Mall of America development officials did not immediately respond Thursday to a...