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Article Courtesy of The Tampa Bay
Times
Published December 7, 2017
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WESLEY CHAPEL – It is the question that appeared on social media nearly
immediately after Metro Development Group announced last month its Crystal
Lagoon in Epperson would be opening in the spring of 2018.
Can we go, too?
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Everyone wanted to know if the lagoon
would be open to people who don’t live in Epperson, the
2,000-home development now under construction at Curley and
Overpass roads in Wesley Chapel.
The answer, says Metro, is yes. With limits yet to be
specified.
"The Lagoon at Epperson is primarily for the residents, but
there will be limited guest access," Greg Singleton,
president of Metro Development Group, said Tuesday via
email.
Exact details will be released in the coming months.
But, how much use the lagoon will get at its initial
opening, possibly in February, is an unknown, Singleton
acknowledged last month.
Why? The lagoon water is not heated.
The 7.5-acre man-made lagoon will hold 16 million gallons of
purified water. It measures more than six football fields
long and four-fifths of a mile around. The amenities include
Caribbean-style beaches and cabanas, a water slide,
entertainment plaza and an area for special events.
Lagoon-goers will be able to swim, kayak, use paddle boards
and sail small boats.
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Times Workers are seen last month in the water as
part of the Crystal Lagoon is being filled at Epperson in Wesley
Chapel. The nation's first Csytal Lagoon is expected to open in
early spring 2018.
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Fernando Fischmann, a real estate developer with a
biochemistry background, founded Crystal Lagoons 10 years ago. He invested
millions of dollars on a 20-acre lagoon along the Chilean coastline in the
mid-1990s and spent five years developing the technology to keep the water
clean, clear and economical.
The lagoon’s patent technology uses hundreds of sensors
and small injectors that add sanitizing chemicals when and where they are
needed — a more efficient strategy than a pool, which depends on a higher
concentration of chlorine to kill bacteria.
The Crystal Lagoon at Epperson is the first built in the United States.
Metro Development Group plans additional lagoons at Mirada, just south of
State Road 52 in eastern Pasco; its Southshore Bay development in southern
Hillsborough and in Fort Myers.
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