The Coco Key water resort has been closed for 14 weeks, after the county health department shut it down. It forced them to make over $50,000 worth of repairs, and on top of all of that, the bank foreclosed on the building during the whole process.
"We are cleaning the water park up. That's our biggest complaint, that it wasn't being cleaned," says Mario Mandolfo, GM of the resort.
When Coco Key was shut down in July for health code violations, general manager Mario Mandolfo says he didn't have the money to pay for repairs. Around a month later, the bank took over the property, giving Mandolfo the money and a directive to clean up the resort.
"Do it and do it correctly. Prior to that we've tried to repair things and we used a band-aid instead of repairing thing," says Mandolfo.
The county cited loose concrete on the lazy river floor, jacuzzi issues and sand at the bottom of the pool, as a few of the reasons for the failed inspection.
"Some of things they mentioned were very, very important, some of the violations like we said, they didn't have the lifeguard certificate, we had them, they were in my office, they just weren't in the office of the water park," says Mandolfo.
Regardless of how serious the violations were, Mandolfo takes full responsibility.
"I guess the blame would fall on me, maybe I didn't do the job that I was expected to do."
With Coco Key for sale, Mandolfo hopes to again make the resort profitable. He announced the re-opening yesterday on Facebook and was encouraged by the response.
"I was overwhelmed, overwhelmed by the amount of people that said I'd be there," says Mandolfo.
Management did retain a few staff members, Coco Key will re-open today with virtually an entire new crop of employees.
