By Jess Ponting
What does it take to build the first Wavegarden Cove in the United States and America’s first truly urban surf park?
In this special Surf Park Summit session, the team behind Atlantic Park Surf pulls back the curtain on one of the most ambitious surf park developments ever attempted. Located in the heart of Virginia Beach and backed by local developers alongside Virginia Beach-born music icon Pharrell Williams, Atlantic Park is a mixed-use destination that combines surfing, hospitality, residential real estate, retail, entertainment, and public gathering spaces into a single vision for the future of urban placemaking.
Moderated by Emily Drake of Kimley-Horn, this conversation brings together the developers, architects, planners, and engineers who spent nearly a decade turning an architecture school thesis into reality. From securing public support and navigating political change to financing, design innovation, infrastructure challenges, and integrating a surf park into an active downtown environment, the panel offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the collaboration, persistence, and audacity required to deliver a project that many believed could never be built.
Whether you’re a developer, operator, investor, designer, or simply fascinated by the future of surf parks, this episode provides an insider’s perspective on a project that is already influencing how surf-anchored destinations are being envisioned around the world.
Moderator
- Emily Drake, Kimley-Horn
Panelists
- Mike Culpepper, Managing Partner, Venture Realty Group
- Bruce Greenfield, Partner, AO
- Mark Erdly, Studio Director, Gensler
- Alec Yuzhbabenko, Design Principal, Hanbury
- David Dallman, Vice President, Kimley-Horn
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