San Alfonso del Mar: example for Houston’s megaproject

25 March, 2015 / News

Crystal Lagoons’ navigable lagoons have raised the interest of the US’ most important developers. The city of Houston, in Texas, has as its main referent the iconic lagoon at San Alfonso del Mar for the 10-acre lagoon project they want to build in the middle of the city.

Monte Large, Jeff Kaplan, and Evan O’Neil have started a crowd funding campaign in Kickstarter to someday build a massive lagoon for their city to alleviate Texas’ summer heat, having in mid San Alfonso del Mar as referent: “For Houstonians to build something that was merely big seemed very un-Houston-like. Houstonians don’t build medical centers, they build the largest medical center in the world. Something along the lines of San Alfonso del Mar would be incredible. This is the kind of input we need right now. If Houstonians want big, let’s go big!” Monte Large said.

The group of engineers in charge of the project highlighted some of the impressive characteristics of San Alfonso del Mar, underling that its inauguration it immediately became a world class attraction: “The 19-acre lagoon on the Chilean coast that is generally considered to be the world’s largest, at least for the moment. One thousand meters long and filled with 250 million liters of seawater. The massive attraction has become a travel destination since its completion in 2006. In one fell swoop a hitherto sleepy town 100 miles west of Santiago was blessed with a bona fide tourist magnet. Remind you of another town you’ve heard of?”.

Since San Alfonso de Mar was certified as the world’s greatest manmade lagoon in 2007, it became an international attraction that keeps raising the interest of myriad media worldwide. In fact, just six months after the lagoon was certified by the World Record Guinness, there were more than 2.000 TV channels, newspapers and magazines visiting the lagoon.

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