The Brookhaven Town Planning Board approved a special use permit for the Long Island Surf Park this week. Set for the town of Shirley, sandwiched between Fire Island and The Hamptons, the wave pool will be quite at 55,000 square feet. By comparison, an American football field is 57,600 square feet. This will be larger than both the BSR Surf Resort and The Cove test facility in Europe.

The Long Island Surf Park project’s website states it will be a “wave pool powered by one of the leading manufacturers of artificial wave technology. Our advanced technology will be able to create over 50 different wave variations every 10-15 seconds ranging from a 2-foot-split peak to a perfectly barreling 7-foot right or left-hander. 

The “50-different wave variations” sounds like Wavegarden Cove technology. But the “2-foot-split peak” is not possible on a full-size Cove as a central pier runs down the middle of the Wavegarden system. Long Island’s wave description sounds more like a Murphys wave system, such as the machine at Typhoon Lagoon. Or perhaps, at this juncture in time with so many technologies emerging, it’s something totally new.

Father-son duo Chris and Brett Portera are behind the project and confirmed with local paper Greater Moriches that the wave pool will include a surf shop, cafe and pro shop. And that it’s the first in a string of planned projects.

“My plan is to have a dozen of these,” Brett Portera told Moriches. He also added that the pool will stay open in the dead of winter and that the water will be kept warm by a system that recaptures energy from the waves.

“We know that there’s a demand for it all year long,” Portera said. “It could be 20 degrees out and there’s guys there surfing in the water.”

In the wave pool scheme, the price structure is often the last piece of information to fall into place. Urbnsurf Melbourne, just weeks away from rolling out their first sets, haven’t announced pricing. But Long Island Surf Park, yet to break ground, gave rather detailed price specifics.

Half of the operating hours will be one-hour session blocks, with prices comparable to Typhoon Lagoon and Snowdonia. Admission to the famous Murphys wave system in Orlando runs roughly $11 per wave during off-peak times. The other half will be for members only.

Pricing for members will be between $3,500-$8,000 depending on the level of privileges, according to the Moriches article. The Long Island Surf Park website states that no more than 12 people will be in the water at the same time, allowing them to catch more than 20 waves per session.

“The idea behind the membership is to allow people who are [interested] in surfing more often a discount on the normal hourly rates while also providing some incentives for frequency,” Portera added.

The park will also have Leif Engstrom as their resident pro and host both club and public surf comps.

While the pricing and location are sorted out, the big factor will be the wave generation technology Long Island chooses. From the looks of the artist renderings, it could be anything from a first-generation Murphys Wave system to a new type of wave maker.

We will keep you updated as the Long Island wave pool plan develops.