Crystal Lagoons making progress in South Korea: launches first projects and sponsors soccer club

25 October, 2021 / News

One of the main Latin American newspapers, El Mercurio, highlighted that Crystal Lagoons is advancing in the development of the first three Public Access Lagoons™ projects, also known as PAL™ developments, in the cities of Incheon and Seoul. This, after signing two years ago a contract with the NexPlan consortium to develop 30 PAL™ projects in that country.

At the same time, the company is also implementing a brand building strategy through the sponsorship of the jersey and stadium banners of the Incheon United soccer club, a professional team in the K-League.

Commenting on the development of the first lagoons, Felipe Baldwin, global business director of Crystal Lagoons, said that “the two projects in Incheon, which are within the greater Seoul area, are under construction and the complex in Seoul itself is about to start.”

According to Baldwin, the PAL™ are being built as part of an urban revitalization plan in Incheon, a city with a population of more than 2.5 million. Nexplan has demonstrated that these projects significantly enhance the value of developing urban sectors,” he added.

With regard to the projects themselves, Baldwin said that, “as usual, the central focus will be a lagoon built using Crystal Lagoons technology. In the case of Incheon, each lagoon will have a surface area of over two hectares each, be surrounded by white sandy beaches and have room for extensive real estate and commercial areas, including restaurants, retail stores, shopping malls, event centers, concerts, and cultural venues.”

Besides Incheon and Seoul, the other projects will be located in cities including Busan, Daegu, Daejeon, Gwangju, Suwon, Ulsan, Changwon and Goyang. Once all the developments are operational, they are expected to receive 30 million people a year and generate annual sales of more than US$1 billion, the company says. The average overall investment for each project is around US$500 million.

In relation to Crystal Lagoons decision to sponsor a soccer club for more than a year, Baldwin said, “Given the magnitude of this ambitious mega-contract in South Korea to develop 30 PAL™ projects, the partners of Crystal Lagoons in that country, the Nexplan consortium, sought to sponsor a professional soccer team. Sponsoring the team’s jersey and stadium banners is part of an innovative and massive marketing strategy.”

The executive added that, “this is a strategic and far-reaching marketing plan that is targeting more than 51 million Koreans. So, it makes sense to focus on a global sport.”

Impact of the pandemic

Referring to whether there had been a decline in interest in developing PAL™ due to the covid-19 pandemic due to the fear of being in large crowds, Baldwin said that, contrary to “what one might think, in times of pandemic we have closed important deals, such as the contract for five projects in Orlando and another one with toy manufacturing giant Mattel in Arizona, to name a few.”

The executive said the rising interest in building PAL™ was in keeping with consumer preferences to stay in areas closer to their homes. Baldwin added that PAL™ are in controlled environments that can guarantee the adoption of sanitary controls and limit the number of people allowed to access them at the same time.

El Mercurio