The Pool at the Amenity Center
When I first saw the pool at the Amenity Center I forgot all about the other places we were looking at homes in because its a beautiful, resort style pool. The only problem, as it turns out, is its not heated! You wouldn’t think that would be a problem in Florida because its hot most of the time, but winter months bring cold nights and the pool water temp starts coming down. My wife and I moved in in August 2021 and the pool temp was perfect. By the time we got to October it was cold and November was too cold to enjoy. I’m originally from Chicago so I’m no stranger to cold water. Lake Michigan never really heats up! When swimming water is in the 80s its perfect, but when its in the low 70s its heart attack cold! There is a committee of concerned residents looking into the feasibility of heating the pool. Watch out for a survey coming via email during the week of Jan 10th.
The pool is 8,000 square feet, holds 112,000 gallons of water and has a lap section at one end and a gradual walk in, like a beach, at the other end. Very nice and very big. Gonna need a BIG heater! It would be nice to be able to use it all year long, not just from April to October! So how do we get this pool heated?
- It would be nice if the developer would put in heaters on his dime, but that is meeting with a lot of resistance. I don’t understand why this pool has been unheated for 15 years while the developer today is building a brand new heated pool for the golf course members (which are all the residents of River Hall), thereby excluding Hampton Lake residents. Wouldn’t it be nice if Hampton Lake residents were allowed to swim in the new heated pool during the winter months!? Then we wouldn’t have to heat this pool, we’d just go down the street to the heated pool! Problem solved! But the golf course residents of River Hall wouldn’t like that…. got to keep the riff-raff out!
- Since Hampton Lakes residents probably won’t be allowed to use the new heated pool and the developer won’t pay for it, the only alternative is to charge members of the Amenity Center HOA a special assessment to get the job done. The irony of that is River Hall residents are a part of that HOA as well as Hampton Lakes residents! But now that River Hall has their own heated pool, good luck with that! Plus, you have a number of residents that have their own pool in their backyard! I had a pool in my home in Arizona, but I don’t want the headache of taking care of a pool anymore.
- Why doesn’t Pulte and Lennar pony up some money to get the pool heated? Its would help sell more of their homes. Split the cost 4 ways… developer, Pulte, Lennar, residents! That wouldn’t hurt anybody too bad! Spread the costs!
The only thing I can say is that a heated pool in the amenity center would add value to the amenity center, our community and our homes! This crazy home market is not going to last forever and having top quality amenities will allow us to hold on to the value of our homes and make our community more desirable to live in! I’m on board to heat the pool. I hope you are too! It would be a good thing for all of us!
Click here to take the pool survey.
Please leave a comment as to what you think. I think we should heat the pool as long as the cost is reasonable. Otherwise, when the housing market dies down, it might take another 20 years to complete the build. You can get mostly the same house at Portico or Babcock Ranch and they have heated pools.
I agree with Harry!
There are dozens of family on our street that use the pool when the water is warm but stay away during the winter months.
Heating the pool before the development is a big mistake for the homeowners. When the developer (Greenpointe) is done with the building and they own the amenity center as well could very well sell it to the homeowners or another entity no one knows for sure. So why dump a bunch of homeowners money anywhere from 100k to ? to increase the value of their property not ours. So if they decide to sell it to us we just increased the price we have to pay which could end up doubling our cost. If the pool becomes heated there is now an additional monthly charge to home owners to heat it in addition to a special assessment. The pool in River Hall is heated by 3 gas tanks the higher the temp the quicker the bottles empty. Sorry but the pool wasn’t heated when current residents moved in so it shouldn’t of been a big surprise come winter. Can’t see why Pulte or Lennar would spend extra money to heat the pool when they are having no problem selling homes with a non heated pool. Can’t speak for Lennar sales rep but our Pulte rep was clear as day said no when we asked if the pool was heated. I maybe biased because we spent the extra money to put a pool in so it will be a big NO from us on heating the pool until at we see what happens with the amenity center when Greenpointe is done.
The amenity center will be ours. The developer can’t sell it to anyone else. We will just be taking it over. Wouldn’t it be nice if we can get the developer to heat the pool and then get it turned over to us!?
Hello PG, I discovered that you are partly correct in that the amenity center is not owned by the HOA, it is owned by the developer. We have a board meeting coming up soon and I will be sure to get clarification about the price we’re going to be charged. Any money we put into heating the pool should not be included in the price. Hopefully, all this we’ll be clarified at the next board meeting. Thanks for bringing it up.
I was told 11 years ago that it was heated so I didn’t put in a pool. So sorry now. Hope we have enough people here now to get it heated!!
Absolutely heat the pool. A no brainer.