The Bahama's Lifestyle Could Come to St. Johns County

[I-10east]

Blue waters that appear ripped straight from the Caribbean lap against sandy shores. You can almost feel the cool Bahama breeze. But this isn't some tropical island paradise, it's St. Johns County — or it soon could be.

Crystal Lagoons US Corp released renderings of a 14 acre water paradise that it says will be the largest in the United States. The project will be built in the Twin Creeks master planned development, said Crystal Lagoons CEO Uri Man, and will cost $200,000 to $250,000 an acre to create.

Man said that with all the development in St. Johns County, particularly in Nacotee, the lagoon will set Twin Creeks a part from its competitors.

"We have seen how much value Crystal Lagoons brings to communities they are in, and we are very excited to work with them on Twin Creeks," said Twin Creeks developer John Kinsey in a statement. "We look forward to bringing the largest Crystal Lagoon in the U.S. to St. Johns County and its residents."

Twin Creeks is a 3,000 acre development where about 3,000 homes could be built. Man said the development will create waterfront, retail and residential projects. The area will also feature retail and office space.

"Our lagoons provide real estate developments with substantial quantifiable benefits such as increases in pricing, sales velocity, higher rents and in many cases, the lagoons are being used to transform otherwise non-viable development sites into viable development sites," he said in a statement.

Kinsey was not immediately available for comment Monday.
Crystal Lagoons, based out of Miami, has 11 projects announced in the U.S. The first man-made lagoon using the technology was constructed in Chile about 17 years ago.

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/blog/morning-edition/2016/01/bahama-lifestyle-coming-to-st-johns-county.html

[brainstormer]

Can't imagine what the CDD fees will be for this development! My hope is that at some point all of the competition drives down prices in St. Johns. In the past year they have risen quickly. 

[Tacachale]

Ugh. Just... ugh.

[E_Dubya]

Hey, let's take a beautiful, unique part of the country and manipulate it to look like some other place! This is just absurd

[I-10east]

After giving this some thought for a while, I actually don't have a problem with this whatsoever. The water is just a large man-made lagoon, basically a gigantic pool. Large pool vs the ocean, two different things...This complex is like a resort. I don't see this in anyway way taking away from the area, being undesirable or anything like that. Wealthy folks (plenty in SJC) that want to stay in a secluded resort-like environment would love something like this.

[Downtown Osprey]

It's the most SJC thing ever. Hey, screw the ocean. Let's build our own!