Magnolia Village/Park - Family Park

After mulling this over and talking with the officers and board members for the past few days the consensus of everyone is that the members of the Magnolia Park Senior Citizens Association need to be made aware of the happenings in Magnolia Village/Park.

As I have told you previously, 31 new mobiles have been moved into the park and they are huge. They are all being advertised on craigslist and the gist of the ad is as follows:   

"Multifamily Housing All Ages Welcomed!! All Credit Considered"

Experience FAMILY LIVING in one of the area's NEWEST COMMUNITIES

The ad goes on to say that it is a pet friendly community, New Playground Coming and Picnic Area.

It does tout these homes of course, as one would expect from someone trying to rent them and from what I can see they have further reduced the rents to help in that effort. A sign is placed out by the gate on a lot of days advertising an Open House.

Now, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. In other words, Magnolia Village is now a family park no matter what they may call it. Most of us who have either lived here year-around for years or come as Winter Texans have enjoyed it as a 55+ park all that time and now that has definitely changed.

There is still no website up for the park so we have no idea what the rents are going to be. They told us the rents wouldn't change but they also told us it was going to stay a 55+ park and that has proved to be not the case. I can't see too many seniors needing or wanting a playground for instance.

There will have to be many decisions made next season in regard to the Association and what each of us plans to do in the future.

Jim and I have about decided that we will return for one more year. We did leave a deposit before we left and reserved our spot on the corner of Center and Magnolia with the thought in mind that we could cancel if things got really bad. We didn't actually think it would come down to Magnolia turning into a family park and now we more or less feel that if we don't come back for one more year we would kind of be like rats deserting a sinking ship.

As I've told several of the officers and board members, it is an end to an era and it is sad. We've had a lot of fun over the years and met lots of great folks. The park has always had its ups and downs which is normal when you get a lot of people living together (especially "old" people). By the time March rolls around most of us are ready to head back north but if you are like I am, it isn't long until I'm counting the months till we are back on the road heading south, wondering how everyone's summer went and looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Stay tuned - I'll try to keep you informed and as always, you can reach me by email.