Ark Park Land Purchase Complete, Groundbreaking Not Scheduled

by Stu Johnson, Kentucky Public RadioPlans for a replica of Noah’s Ark in northern Kentucky are moving forward, but the pace of the project has slowed.This week, officials with Ark Encounter closed on the last and largest piece of property needed for the biblically-themed amusement park. The development has been promised $40 million in tax incentives from the state, but the rebates won’t come until the park opens. There were plans to break ground this spring on the Ark Encounter, but that won’t happen.“We try to predict and then things slow down… and then we keep putting things off so we’re gonna hold off on setting a date for it," says senior vice president Mike Zovath, adding that the groundbreaking won’t happen any time soon.The aim of the project is to get people thinking about the Biblical account of Noah and the flood.“If we can show that the account of the ark is believable and plausible in people’s eyes then the rest of the biblical account, the account of salvation—Jesus Christ dying for our sins—is as plausible as the Ark Encounter," says Zovath.The project has been criticized for presenting an unscientific account of human history. For instance, the ark will show dinosaurs coexisting with humans and the park is centered around a theory that the Earth is 6,000 years old.