(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Natural Resources Commission has approved an agreement that moves oversight of the Honey Creek Resort in south-central Iowa from the D-N-R to the Department of Administrative Services (DAS).

D-A-S director Adam Steen told the Commission they started talking about the issue with the D-N-R as his agency sought a contract for a new company to operate the resort.”Essentially, D-N-R delegating its management authority to DAS. D-N-R will still own the property, it’s still obviously a state park, all that good stuff. It’s just from an operations perspective, DAS,” he says. Steen says it the agreement doesn’t make any big changes for the state.

“In my mind this shifts a lot of the workload from D-N-R to DAS. And in my view from DAS’s perspective is if they could just be available for questions along the way, we’ll try to stay out of their road and let them sort of remove themselves from any operation going forward. So the goal is to ease the burden on D-N-R here,” Steen says. He says the transition from Delaware North to the new concessionaire, Achieva Enterprises went well, and they have a multi-year contract.

“So it’s structured right now for six years, with then three, three-year potential extension. So it could go up to 15 years. But right now, the first portion of the contract would go for six years,” he says.

The resort along Rathbun Lake has had financial issues since it opened in 2008 and the D-N-R had sought a buyer before making the announcement it was hiring a new company to run the facility. Steen says the long-term goal is to sell. “The goal is not to hold on to the property for six or even 15 years. The goal is to work with the Army Corps to get the lease changed, privatized, if you will, so that ultimately we could we could sell the property,” Steen says. “We’re not there yet, we’ve got a ways to go on that.” Steen says the new operator will address something that has been an issue.

“The main difference is that the resort will be open year round. I know that was a point of contention, certainly down in Appanoose County that it was shut down. You know, obviously you had the anomaly with COVID, but then over the winter months it was never reopened,” he says. Steen says the new operator gives them a chance to rethink the promotion of the resort. “I think this provides us an opportunity to do marketing and a little different way than Delaware North. And that’s not a knock on Delaware North. It’s just we can do things a little differently,” Steen says.

He says things are ramping up for this year and the courtesy dock and camping will be available along with the hotel. Steen says the inflatable water park on the lake had about 20-thousand dollars in damage and they assessing whether they can get that fixed and have the park back open.