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As the blaze of the summer sun starts taking over the landscape of Houston, families migrate to pools and water areas to find comfort from the heat.
That is why the city's planned communities are spending thousands of dollars to construct elaborate water parks with slides and play equipment that will lure new residents.
Developers have always used swimming pools and water attractions such as lakes and fountains as drawing cards for their communities. But water parks - the newest trend in water facilities - are giving a whole new meaning to "resortstyle living."
Challenging to design, expensive to construct and costly to maintain, water parks are creating such a splash in some Houston communities that more and more new locations are adopting this feature.
The expense is justified by both sales figures for the communities and residents' satisfaction levels, developers say.
"This is what everyone loves," says Bill Odle, senior associate at TBG Partners, landscape architects that have been involved in many of Houston' s pioneer water park projects. "It's a new trend, it's what the market's driving."
DESIGN CHALLENGES
While water parks are a big hit among residents, they also bring new challenges to designers.
"The challenging part of it is having a design that is interactive and interesting to your visitors," Odle says. "You're trying to make everything blend together and become one where all these different activities are happening, the main thing is having unity between the different components."
The main purpose of creating them is to have a resort-style component where visitors van get completely engrossed in the activities, Odle adds. Safety is the biggest concern in these types of facilities, says Peter Houghton, director of sales for Terrabrook Houston, which is developing three communities that have water park features.
Enhanced safety measures, which raise the cost of insurance, bring new operating charges. There are a lot more lifeguards needed in water park facilities than in traditional swimming pools, Houghton says. There is also more technology involved in running water parks.
"It's a whole new expertise," he adds.
Maintaining water parks can be a costly venture, which is why these facilities must be designed to maintain a balance between the cost of utilities and the cost of personnel, says...