More than 300 real estate professionals turned out for Bisnow’s first Surf Park Real Estate Conference, filling the room with developers, architects, general contractors, engineers, insurers and capital markets players, many of them sitting in on serious discussions of surf-anchored real estate and park operations for the first time.
Sam D’Angelo, director of West Coast events and operations for Bisnow said the event exceeded expectations.
“We set out hoping for 200 attendees, and ended up with 380 registered. That tells you where capital and attention are headed in this asset class right now.”
The Entire Value Chain, in One Room
The audience in the room covered the entire value chain. Owners, operators and developers made up the single largest professional group at the event. Followed by construction firms, general contractors, engineering firms, architects, designers, consultants, institutional investors, CRE brokers, and law firms rounding out the list.
Insurance and security were no longer niche presences. Insurance and underwriting firms alone made up nearly 3% of the room, alongside a cluster of dedicated security integrators, both categories that panelists said belong in a project’s earliest planning conversations, not its punch list.
Special Sauce
A clear theme of the day for the Bisnow event: surf works best as an anchor amenity, not a standalone business. Panelists compared it directly to golf: there is essentially no golf course built without a surrounding housing community, because that community effectively subsidizes the course.
äventuur, which holds rights to surf-anchored projects in Dallas, Austin, Jacksonville and Nashville, described a typical site running 30 to 50 acres, with only about 5.5 of those acres sitting under the wave technology itself and the rest split between the broader surf park ecosystem, and everything built around it. Meriwether Companies, developer of Coral Mountain Desert Club and Cabo Real Surf Club, framed surf as the “special sauce” that makes the rest of a resort or residential community premium.
According to some panelists, financing follows a familiar arc. Friends and family fund the early stretch (enough to prove a project is viable and lock in entitlements) before it can credibly go after institutional capital, which wants a team with a track record and real comparable data. That data is still thin industry-wide, since most surf parks have only been operating for a few years, against decades of benchmarks for most real estate categories.
Insurance, Security and Building With the End in Mind
Risk planning was a recurring theme, and the numbers back it up: Insurance can represent roughly 5% to 8% of operating expenses for a claim-free surf park or zip line operation, compared with approximately 1% to 2% for a typical restaurant or retail business. Granite Insurance, one of several insurers in the room, noted that lagoon-bottom construction choices can affect those premiums.
The advice that followed, repeated across multiple panels, was to design with the end in mind. Security cameras and other low-voltage systems (lighting, sound and screens) belong in the original build, not retrofitted later at the cost of cut concrete, drilled walls and expensive change orders.
The same logic applies to the lagoon itself: panelists warned repeatedly against “value engineering” a surf basin, calling it a 10- to 20-year asset that isn’t the place to cut costs. The standing advice on cost estimates from vendors and general contractors alike: whatever number you’re given, double it.
Lessons From the Builders and Operators
Panelists came prepared with rebuttals to the standard set of city-council objections: water use, noise and lighting. A full lagoon’s annual water use is roughly equivalent to one hole of golf course irrigation. A breaking wave registers as white noise around 70 decibels. Light spill zones are small enough that some parks have had to add extra lighting just to adequately cover emergency exits.
Reverse tourism came up as an underused selling point for skeptical cities: a desert surf park draws crowds precisely when it’s 110 degrees outside and nothing else pulls people outdoors, and Utah’s surf parks promise to draw summer visitors to what has traditionally been a winter destination.
On the operations side, panelists (including Cate Thero, co-founder of Surf Park Management, which operates across multiple properties) said non-surf activity is becoming a bigger share of the business, with non-surfers now accounting for roughly 45% of revenue at some parks. The underwriting guidance was to model conservatively around 50% pool occupancy and expect about three years to fully ramp a new property.
What Attendees Took Away
For a topic this new to the Bisnow commercial real estate community, the reception inside the room may be the most telling data point of the day. Sam D’Angelo added that there was enough support to see the event return.
“The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. For many attendees, this was their first real introduction to surf parks as a real estate asset class, and a chance to unite their love of surfing with real estate.”
Bisnow plans to hold its next Surf Park Real Estate Conference in summer 2027.
Tony Finn and Mark Sawyer-Chu. All photos by John Cocozza Photography.
Bisnow Released These Takeaways
- Surf parks are becoming anchor amenities. As the group put it, “surf parks have shifted from a standalone attraction model to a real estate-driven business.” For developers, that can mean higher ADRs, stronger lease-up velocity, and more differentiated positioning in crowded markets, along with potentially higher upfront development costs.
- They drive repeat, high‑value traffic. The median visitor spend is $125 on surfing plus $100 on non‑surf amenities per visit. And 60% of users visited more than once last year. That’s sticky demand — the kind hospitality and multifamily crave. Surfer sentiment has shifted dramatically, with 97.5% now willing to use a surf park — a massive behavioral unlock.
- Progression programs = predictable revenue. Progression is key to fueling return surfers. Instructional models are key to fostering this progression and building the market. For hotels and mixed‑use, that’s recurring programming that keeps guests and residents engaged year‑round.
- They unlock mixed-use economics. Surf parks create gravity by pulling retail, food and beverage, wellness, and experiential uses into a cohesive ecosystem. Multifamily benefits from lifestyle branding; hospitality benefits from experiential differentiation. Without those surrounding uses, the full economic impact is harder to capture.
- They attract an affluent, educated demographic. The global surfing population has grown 25% since COVID-19, reaching an estimated 50 million surfers worldwide, including 4 million in the U.S. With average surf-trip spending just under $2,000, that represents a tourism niche of roughly $64.9 billion.
- They extend seasonality. In markets like Palm Desert, Phoenix, Cabo, and Florida, surf parks create a 12‑month activation layer that hotels and residential communities can monetize and offset loses during off-season bookings.
- They justify premium pricing. Membership models, private clubs, and bundled experiences are already proving out. Crest New York has sold over 50% of memberships pre‑opening — a strong signal for developers exploring hybrid hospitality/residential products.
- What about the water? Water use is a common concern, often stemming from limited awareness of surf park water-management strategies. Integrating surf parks into broader community development plans can help address this issue. By making trade-offs in adjacent landscapes, developers may achieve a net reduction in water use compared with traditional development approaches. Compared to irrigated soccer fields, golf courses, etc. surf parks can net less water usage.
