The acrimony between the state and the concessionaire who runs its long-troubled Honey Creek Resort continues, with the state now asking the court to overturn a temporary injunction blocking it from ending its relationship with Achieva Enterprises.
Achieva won the contract to operate the hotel, golf course, marina and restaurant on southern Iowa’s Rathbun Lake in 2023. The Iowa Department of Administrative Services moved to terminate the contract on Oct. 29, following a contentious phone conference with the company’s owners, Beth and Terry Henderson, the previous week.
The phone call centered on a disagreement between Achieva and department officials regarding the facility’s deteriorating water park. The department wanted to repair it while the Hendersons favored replacing it with an indoor miniature golf course.
The Hendersons reacted by threatening, during the recorded phone call, to close the resort. Department officials said they needed to protect state property so they moved to abrogate the contract and take over the resort, shutting it down and locking the Hendersons out.
The couple sued, and in court testimony, told Polk County District Court Judge Jeffrey Farrell that the closure threat was an expression of frustration in the heat of the moment rather than an actual plan.
Farrell ruled Dec. 26 the department acted without sufficient justification. He granted the temporary injunction restoring Achieva as the operator of the resort, with a mandate that Honey Creek be reopened no later than March 12.
Attorneys from the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, representing the state, contend in court documents dated Feb. 26 that Achieva is making no actual progress toward reopening the resort and that Achieva’s directors of operations and quality control have admitted being unaware of any plans to hire staff or reopen.
“These admissions, combined with the total lack of progress, justify dissolving the temporary injunction and allowing the state to proceed with its termination of the Concessionaire agreement,” the state attorneys wrote in their motion to strike down the injunction.
Attorneys for Achieva did not immediately respond to phone calls Monday, March 2, seeking comment and an update on the company’s plans for the resort. Beth Henderson could not be reached separately for comment.
Hearing set on whether to extend deadline for reopening resort
Achieva had alleged in a court filing Feb. 16 that the state during the shutdown allowed the property to deteriorate while it sat empty over the winter months and had yet to provide them full access to the facility. It asked for an extension of the March 12 deadline for reopening and that the state be found in contempt of court.
A hearing has been set for March 16.
The state has pushed back aggressively on Achieva’s claims. Among allegations in its Feb. 26 filing is that Achieva has removed the small-scale trackless train used as an attraction at the resort; that the company has not been doing the preseason maintenance necessary for reopening the golf course; and that it has engaged in illegal employment practices by not paying overtime to an eligible employee.
That state has said it “categorically denies the false allegations advanced by Achieva. These continued misrepresentations demonstrate that Achieva’s priority is attacking the State instead of reopening Honey Creek Resort.”
“Notably, Achieva has not claimed it has taken any affirmative steps to reopen the resort in any of its recent filings,” it said. “Instead, it has failed to respond to emergency water leaks and heat loss issues at the property despite having possession and control of the premises.”
In court documents, the state also said “Achieva’s hyperbolic claims of damage at the resort now before the court underscore its goal to use this litigation as a tool to attack the state parties, rather than to reopen and run a successful resort for the benefit of guests and Iowans.”
It said Achieva “has failed to meet its burden of proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the state willfully disregarded the court’s interim orders or the temporary injunction.”
“The court should not allow any extension of the timeline it previously directed, and especially not such a fluid and unilateral one,” the state attorneys wrote.
Also included in the filing was a statement from former Achieva employee Lynda Millard contending that Achieva regularly required her to work overtime to support its events but in August 2025 began rolling over her work hours from one pay period to the next, avoiding payment of the overtime wages she was owed.
The court documents indicate Millard filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, with the state contending that such a breach of employment law invalidates Achieva’s contract.
Resort has struggled for almost two decades
Envisioned as the result of a drive for state resort parks then-Gov. Tom Vilsack launched in 2000, the $60 million Honey Creek Resort was funded in large part by tax-exempt state bonds. But the project, which opened in 2008, never became a premier Iowa vacation spot. The Legislature spent another $33 million to pay off the outstanding bonds before turning Honey Creek’s management over to Delaware North Cos. in June 2016.
Under its contract, Delaware North was supposed to pay the state a portion of its profits after Honey Creek’s annual revenues hit $7 million. With the resort’s debt paid off, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources projected the deal could be worth millions to the state.
But revenues and occupancy never achieved that level and plunged after the COVID-19 pandemic reached Iowa in 2020. Delaware North opted out of its contract in 2022, and the Hendersons and Achieva took over the following year.
Kevin Baskins covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at kbaskins@registermedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa seeks again to end contract for operator of Honey Creek Resort
Reporting by Kevin Baskins, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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