Development Facilities
Welcome to Global Oceanic Designs’ wave pool facility located in the piney woods of Willis, Texas. This site was chosen for its strategic location, a mere forty minutes from George Bush Intercontinental Airport and just fifty miles north of the offshore and energy capital of the United States, Houston, Texas. Located ninety miles north of the Gulf of Mexico and only three miles from Lake Conroe, convenient salt and fresh water access is readily available.
Seadog Systems, Inc. has contracted an exclusive; two year service contract with Global Oceanic Designs, that allows SeaDog Systems to utilize the wave pool and buildings as a design, development, testing, training, and marketing facility.
There is definitely more here than initially meets the eye.
It begins as one enters the facility through either of the two blue gates that allow passage through the eight foot tall, white wall and observes the beautifully landscaped grounds that reflect a deep respect for the environment. Beyond that, the first item of note is a SeaDog Wave Pump that successfully endured two ocean trials in the Gulf of Mexico and has been retired to become an exhibition piece at the entrance to the property.
As you pass the SeaDog Wave Pump exhibit and continue up the driveway, you will notice a nondescript, red and white, metal building ahead and a much larger and somewhat unusual looking building, on your right.
Straight ahead and nestled among towering pines, is the 2,500 square foot, red and white, metal building that will showcase the various SeaDog Systems prototypes and related technologies, products and accessories. Inside, the carpeted display floor, dynamic marketing presentations and sophisticated exhibits are flanked by design offices and a hospitality area and restroom.
Above the main display floor, accessed via spiral stairway, is a well-appointed loft that serves as a comfortable meeting, presentation and conference area, as well as an elevated point of observation of the floor below.
The unusual looking building on your right is Global Oceanic Designs’ wave pool and its associated buildings. Constructed in 2010, the wave pool is one hundred fifty feet long, forty feet wide and sixteen feet deep. At its most common operational depth of eight feet, the wave pool contains more than four hundred thousand gallons of water provided by the permitted water well on-site.
The wave pool and its two attached bunkers are sunk eight feet below ground level, such that the top of the wave pool and the sidewalk that surrounds it are nine feet above grade. The sidewalk surrounding the wave pool is accessed by climbing a single flight of stairs, up from ground level.
By entering either bunker at ground level, then walking down one flight of stairs, you will immediately be impressed by the two, eight foot wide, four foot high and three inch thick, clear acrylic, underwater water viewing portals that allow excellent viewing of any underwater activity taking place at either end of the wave pool. The southeast bunker also houses SeaDog Systems’ patented, sixteen foot tall, acrylic Air/Water Energy Recovery Device prototype.
Perched above each of the sunken bunkers, is an elevated control room. The floor of each control room is also the ceiling of the bunker below and is level with the top of the wave pool and the six foot wide sidewalk that surrounds it.
Each control room enjoys an abundance of windows which allow easy viewing of all above surface activity taking place in the wave pool.
The northwest control room is at the wave-maker end of the wave pool and allows easy visual monitoring of all above surface activity at that end of the wave pool. It will also house the computerized control panel that will power and operate the wave makers’ new, screw driven, electrically powered, linear actuators. This new actuator system will take wave production from a current maximum height of three and a half feet to a maximum of seven feet. The computerized control panel will also monitor and control all system inputs and outputs, such as flow rates, pressures and kilowatts.
The southeast control room is slightly larger and provides excellent visual monitoring of all above surface activity at that end of the wave pool. It may also provide additional office space.
The three SeaDog Wave Pumps currently positioned in the middle of the wave pool will be retrofitted and tested before being removed from the wave pool and placed in the Gulf of Mexico for their one-year maintenance run. While Global Oceanic Designs’ wave pool already exits, as described above. It does not yet have its glassed in exterior walls and roof, as shown in the rendering above.
Once you pass the existing metal showcase building and the wave pool as you move further into the property, you will see the proposed location of the ten-thousand square foot, red and white metal, fabrication building (shown connected via a covered walkway in the artist’s rendering above). This building will feature separate areas for the crafting of wood, metal and acrylic specialty items along with all of the necessary equipment and accessories needed to stock a very well equipped machine shop.
Further back and to the right, you will find the proposed location of a one acre holding pond that will be landscaped and aqua-scaped with water loving, wetlands type plantings to provide a level natural water filtration and provide more options for directing and conserving water flows generated by normal operations of the wave pool.
The smaller building to the right, located between the wave pool and the holding pond (as seen in the rendering above) is the proposed location of a fifty-five hundred square foot office building that will house SeaDog Systems’ corporate offices including the engineering department, design technicians, and the marketing and presentation facility.
The many unique features of this innovative facility will combine to offer an all-inclusive experience for SeaDog Systems’ national and international clients, once it is totally completed. Global Oceanic Designs intends to have its wave pool facility and showcase complex completed by 2018. SeaDog Systems, Inc. is extremely fortunate to have contracted access to this property during this period.