Earlier this summer, the city of Montgomery, Alabama, broke ground on a new addition to the city’s downtown: a whitewater park. The $50 million project, which is expected to be completed by summer 2023, will be located on a 120-acre parcel along the shores of the Alabama River, with a recirculating wave park suited for kayakers and paddleboarders.

It’s just one of several new whitewater parks popping up around the U.S. A new whitewater park is under construction in Great Falls, South Carolina, on the Catawba River, that will be open by 2023. New England is getting its first whitewater park: The 13-acre Mill City Park will open this September in the former mill town of Franklin, New Hampshire, with a bike pump track, climbing walls, and whitewater features.

“Whitewater parks have revolutionized kayaking by bringing the best of remote mountain kayaking to the center of the city,” says Scott Shipley, a former World Cup kayak slalom champion and three-time Olympian who now runs S2O Design, a whitewater design and engineering firm out of Lyons, Colorado. Shipley estimates there are more than 70 whitewater parks around the U.S., with around 10 currently in progress.

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