With summer right around the corner, you may be looking for a place to cool off. For the past two summers, Lake Tobesofkee's Sandy Beach Water Park has been Macon’s only water park.
The park opened in July 2015, offering people a place to keep cool on hot summer days, and the only park of its kind in Central Georgia.
However, now the park looks very different than it did almost two years ago.
The park is in Commissioner Joe Allen's district, so he met me there to take a look at its condition for the first time.
“I’m shocked. I’m disappointed,” said Bibb County Commissioner Joe Allen. They park is in his district. He says he never supported the county choosing Jeff Franklin's company Spirit of America Theme Park and Development, LLC to build it.
“They just bid on the first thing that came along and put this in,” says Allen.
In October 2014, Bibb County agreed to lease the land to Franklin's company to build a water park. The county spelled out 15 requirements, the elements they wanted in the park.
In May 2015, Franklin requested several amendments that would give him more time to complete those requirements and still open in June 2015. The county agreed to seven amendments, but gave Franklin new deadlines.
13WMAZ went out to the park to see if this year's requirements will be completed this year, but there were no signs of work being done.
The county says there has to be a third slide by June 30. Looking at the park there are two larger slides and then a third smaller slide in the kid splash area. The park also must have permanent shade structures by June 30th. These are the shade structures she saw.
The resolution also says the privacy fences around the pumps have to be replaced with a permanent block structure by June 30th, and while there is a block wall on one side of the pumps, it is still just fence on the other sides.
She shared this list with Allen, and he says does not think there is enough time to get all of this done before May 5th. That is when Franklin's financial consultant, Dwaine Butler, says they are opening the water park this year.
“There's things that should've been done prior to now. They should be getting ready hiring people getting people ready,” says Allen.
There is new management at the park this year. Butler says a bank, Persons Banking Company of Conyers, hired his company, Hays Financial Consulting, on February 14th as a court appointed receiver to run the park. Persons is the parent company of the bank that loaned Franklin money to open the park.
Butler says Franklin's company still owns the park, but they are hiring a managing company to get the park up and running. Butler says they are currently analyzing whether the new management will be able to meet this year's requirements at the park.
“It’s county property. The people of Macon-Bibb County pay taxes for the property that’s here, so we need to find out what’s happening,” says Allen.
We asked how many people visited the water park over the last two seasons, Bibb County says they do not receive any records of that and Jeff Franklin never got back to us.
Below are pictures of the park taken on March 22, 2017.