More than 50 days since its opening, Union City's Discovery Park of America is enjoying strong visitor numbers and positive feedback.
In the month of November, more than 23,000 people entered the 50-acre, $80-million park financed by Entrepreneur and Union City native Robert Kirkland.
Marketing Director Mary Nita Bondurant says the park is a popular spot for field trips. But the booming popularity opening week initially resulted in long lines at ticket counters.
“The first few weeks when people were coming in to buy memberships, that takes a few minutes because you have to get their address, their telephone number, their email address, take a picture and print out the card," said Bondurant. "The lines were a little slow and we had people that had to stand in line for about 45 minutes to an hour. But we’ve really worked on that and lately we’ve been getting people through pretty quickly.”
Another challenge the staff faced opening week was not having enough docents to accommodate for the vast number of visitors’ questions. Bondurant says they've since remedied that problem.
She says the Park has already planned its 2014 calendar and has designated January as Space and Flight month.
