If you were hoping to take a ride on a 1,000-foot-long zip line through Bend’s Old Mill District this summer, you’ll have to keep dreaming.

That’s because the 1,000-foot zip line, which would have carried riders from the shopping area to a landing zone across the Deschutes River, recently hit a snag that leaves its future in limbo.

Changes in design — specifically a 17-foot increase in the height of the launch tower — caused the Old Mill District to back away from the project last month after it had lent its support and called it a boon for tourism.

“It just wasn’t quite what we had in mind,” Old Mill developer Bill Smith said. “We knew it would be taller than the buildings around it, obviously, but it was much taller than the buildings around it, and it just would have been out of place.”

Bend-based Wanderlust Tours is the company behind the zip line. Initial plans showed the launch tower located near the catwalk between Strictly Organic Coffee and Victoria’s Secret. The cable height was about 50 feet.

But when Wanderlust submitted its plans to the city, the launch tower had been moved behind one of the buildings, and the platform had been raised to above 60 feet. This new configuration would have carried riders over one of the buildings on their way to the landing zone across the river near a parking lot off Columbia Street.

Wanderlust needed to adjust the height to account for sag in the line that left it too close to the ground in the original design. Increasing the tower height meant Wanderlust needed more room at the base to install guy wires for added stability. That change required placement of the tower in a different location.

Wanderlust Tours owner Dave Nissen said he was surprised when the Old Mill decided to pull out of the project, but that development doesn’t mean the project won’t happen.

“We are presently looking for alternative private land to place the zip line,” Nissen said. “A key to the success of the whole zip line operation is, of course, the land on which to do it, so if there is a willing partner out there, I’m looking for that partner now.”

He said the Old Mill District was an attractive place to put an urban zip line because it would provide people with vistas of the mountains while they rode above the Deschutes River.

While he said there still might be an option to place the zip line in a different section of the Old Mill, any new opportunities would have to meet similar criteria for aesthetics and topography.

“Clearly it will not happen this summer,” Nissen said. “So, we’re looking for next summer.”

Other groups that supported Wanderlust Tours’ zip line project included the Central Oregon Visitors Association and Visit Bend.