It seems like a lot of parks claim that their rapids rides were built "in-house" even if they are technically Intamin rides. I wonder if it's because with rapids rides you have to do most of the work through a local contractor team rather than ordering track from a manufacturer. Intamin probably just provides boats, lifts, operating systems, and such, leaving the park to build all of the trough and install everything.
That's pretty much exactly the case. Intamin or another company will provide the mechanics of the ride- the boats, station systems and such, but the course layout, design, obstacles to create the rapids, drops and other such things are usually done by the parks themselves. They'll work together with the ride company to make sure that it's all going to actually work, but the park will do the vast majority of that other work on their own.
In all fairness (and not to take away from parks employees and their time involved), the park will be hiring sub contractors to do most of the work..
The demo (park doesnt own that equip)
Haul off debris,
Haul in fill material,
set elevations and prep ground work,
actual pouring of concrete,
Actual assembly of new station and launch area,
water pumps and all the piping to make it work,
Electrical..
....the park just does not own this type of equipment, and i doubt if they have enough "trained" employees to do this type of construction. Now, can they help? YES, can they do some of the construction? YES. Will the park oversee the project? I am sure yes.. But the majority o the "heavy work" will be hired out
AND again, I am not taking anything away from the guys at the park.. they do a great job, fixing, repairing, prepping, designing, lots of ideas. They will No doubt help ALOT.. They have a BIG job, with lots of responsilbilty, but they just are not set up to do this job themselves...