A new bay-side waterpark is planned along Highway 361 in Port Aransas, but as Spoonbill Bay takes shape, some residents are raising concerns about water use.

PORT ARANSAS, Texas — With the closure of Hurricane Harbor, the waterpark at Spoonbill Bay is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated attractions of the summer despite water concerns. 

This new waterpark set to open this summer along Highway 361 — marking the first development of its kind on the bay side.

With 11 homes already built, Spoonbill Bay is starting to take shape — a vision developers Willard Hammonds III and Alex Harris have spent years working to bring to life.

“So Spoonbill Bay is a luxury resort, housing community development. We are gonna have approximately around 190 homes,” Hammonds said. “They’re primarily luxury products designed around vacations and short term rentals. They’re really investment properties, but it’s where all the memories are made, a vacation that lasts you a lifetime.”

But the Main attraction Hammonds said is the 2-acre waterpark.

“That water park which we call Spoonbill Lagoon,  will be a high scale kind of water aquatic amenity. What it’ll feature is an amenity pool, that has a tanning ledge, a swim up bar. On the other side of that swim up bar will have a lazy river, so you actually have a two-sided swim up bar. It’s pretty fun,” Hammonds said. “We will also have a kids’ pool,  and it’s got slides that are no more than about 10 ft tall just so that we make it as family friendly.”

But not everyone is on board with the idea of a water park — including visitor Ali Carter.

“The issue of water conservation and how we are in trouble. We’re in trouble across the entire state. We’ve got a very long-lived drought and the idea of wasting money and wasting water is problematic, particularly when you have the ocean here. The ocean is just gorgeous,” Carter said.

Harris said the team is following water restrictions and has even hired water park consultants to ensure everything is done properly.

“So we drill three wells. We’d spend $100,000 in a water treatment facility,” Harris said. ” We’ve got water, so other places may not have water. Our pools will have water. Our whole lagoon will be open with our own water.”

Carter said she loves visiting Port Aransas and hopes the community will step up its conservation efforts.

“You know this developer is saying they’re going to drill wells. Well that doesn’t matter, they’re going into the water table. This is all the same. So we’ve got to get serious here. This is a really big concern,” Carter said.

Others, like Jo Henry and her family — Olivia Keyes and Samarrah Honey — say they’re looking forward to having a new attraction in town.

“We live in an area that has we’re under water restrictions all the time so as long as they do the reclaimed water and they just recycle it, I don’t see a problem with that that’s what most places do,” Jo said.

“I believe that it would be needed for some people who are not as strong swimmers and because you can get swept away by the tide near the beach, so I feel like a water park. I almost said Schlitterbahn, a water park would be necessary,” Olivia said.

And developers say Spoonbill Bay is only the beginning.

We have another track of land that we call Spoonbill Beach, and it’s another 35 acre development that once we go from here to there, so then potentially 400 homes will be with this water park,” Harris said. 

Hammonds says the waterpark is set to open midsummer and the rest of the housing community will take a few years to develop.