Building a surf park requires collaboration across multiple teams and strong relationships with local leaders, including city and county officials. This is essential for securing project approval and ensuring that government agencies are on board, as many may be interested in supporting surf-based developments to drive local economic growth.
A prime example is Revel Surf in Mesa, AZ, which serves as the centerpiece of the expansive Cannon Beach development. This project includes restaurants, retail, and more. The development is expected to have a significant economic impact on the area. Plans for another Cannon Beach are already underway near Dallas, TX.
Throughout the design and development phases, Revel’s team worked closely with city officials, including Mesa’s Director of Economic Development, Jaye O’Donnell. During the Arizona Surf Park Development Tour, O’Donnell shared valuable insights with surf park enthusiasts, developers, and industry professionals, offering a deeper understanding of how cities can support surf-anchored real estate projects.
Following the event, she spoke with Surf Park Central to provide further insights on the future of surfing beyond the ocean.
Surf Park Central: How can surf-anchored real estate projects act as an economic boost for cities and their communities?
Jaye O’Donnell: I think surf parks in general serve as a really strong anchor for entertainment developments, for many communities, and I think we’re just sort of on the cusp of learning how impactful Cannon Beach is and will be over time. We really liked Cole Cannon’s model of using the surf park as that anchor destination amenity, and then how he’s now filling it out with other entertainment options, retail and restaurant options around there, and then also the hotels that he has planned for the site.
It just makes for a better project overall, and it extends the visitors’ time at the park, when you have all of those other amenities working together, there’s just a bigger residual benefit economically.
We also consider this surf park to be a point of pride for residents. So residents can certainly enjoy the surf park, but it’s also an attraction for visitors. So visitors from around the state and around the country are going to be coming to Cannon Beach and staying in local hotels, eating at local restaurants and spending money shopping in our local stores as well.
Surf Park Central: As you mentioned, while surf parks can bring in crowds, having the right amenities can create an even stronger economic impact. Can you discuss that a bit more?
O’Donnell: I think that every city is a little bit different, and some cities might be more equipped with recreational amenities. Other cities might already have the beach nearby. But the thing that we find attractive about this particular development is that it serves people of all ages and abilities. So it really plays well to a recreation setting, but you can come and surf for an hour if you want to, or you can come and just watch people surf, but you can be on the beach, you can still participate in a way.
And then you have amenities built into the park that also serve a number of different people, again, young to old, families, teenagers. So you can really plan a vacation around it. If you come for the day to the surf park, you can do other things in and around the surf park that make the destination a little more attractive to plan a vacation around for three, four or five days and really extend your time. So we look at it as another really good benefit from a visitor product or a tourism product.
Surf Park Central: What can cities do to attract destinations like a surf park? And on the opposite side, how could a potential surf park developer find a city interested in putting their resources if not even incentives to attract a surf-anchored development?
O’Donnell: I think this is such an emerging industry that many cities probably have no idea that this is even an option that they could recruit to their community.
I shared this at the conference, I’ve been in the city of Mesa for 15 years, and at least every other year, we would have a developer or company come in with this idea of doing a water park or some sort of recreation that was outdoor. And it never came to fruition for a variety of reasons, but it’s something that with Cannon Beach, they had the tenacity and the financing to put it together. So I think that’s really critical that the companies who want to do this, the developers who want to do this, have a really good narrative put together. They need to be able to tell their story, both from a financing perspective, and here’s what they have to make the project happen, but also show how the data stacks up and kind of proves their case.
Then developer needs to show what is going to fill out the site around the surf park anchor is also really important. So, I think it would be helpful if the developers could identify their target cities and then meet with those economic development departments of the cities and some municipalities do their economic development activities in-house, like we do at the City of Mesa.
With Cannon Beach, Cole already knew the East Valley. He knew Mesa, and so he identified the really attractive location in Mesa. So he already had a good knowledge of what was in Greater Phoenix. So I think it’s good to be familiar with the market that you want to go into, and then figure out, really identify a champion in the community in which you want to locate.
Surf Park Central: Surf park developments cost millions of dollars and that price tag can be one of the biggest hurdles for developers. Do you have any advice for developers looking to connect with cities in hopes of finding economic incentives?
O’Donnell: The best thing is to come to the table with a pro forma and what you think you will generate from an economic impact. What are you going to generate for property tax? What are you going to generate for sales tax? What does it look like for increased visitation to the area? What does it do to the community when you have an amenity like this that residents can take advantage of, and instead of taking their dollars maybe over to a beach community, they can do a staycation here in their community? So, knowing the numbers on that front, I think, is really powerful and I would say that developers can ask for anything, but it’s really up to the cities on how they structure development agreements.
In some states, municipalities are a little more limited in what they can offer. We at the City of Mesa, typically have really robust infrastructure. We’ve done a good job of planning for the future. So a lot of times we already have shovel-ready sites. We have the water, the power, the sewer, the fiber, the streets, you know, all of those improvements are usually done and ready to go.
However, there have been times when we have been able to reimburse for public infrastructure as part of a performance-based development agreement, and that’s where I think the incentives have changed over time, to where the municipalities or the communities and state have been very conscientious about having the developer perform first before getting awards of financial incentives.
Surf Park Central: Let’s switch from developers to park operators. What can park operators do to continue working with community leaders and maintain a strong relationship after opening?
O’Donnell: It is incumbent upon the operators to engage fully with the community, and we have follow up meetings with Adam Saks and Cole on a regular basis, but we’re actually talking with them to do some brainstorming around this concept of a corporate membership that Cannon Beach wants to do. They are already linked with the Mesa Chamber of Commerce. They are linked with Visit Mesa, the Convention and Visitors Bureau. So I think that’s a really positive relationship. And then just staying in front of the elected officials and the Office of Economic Development so that we can continue to promote the amenity and make sure their message is getting out.
We’ve done a number of things with Cannon Beach, for example, the Mesa Chamber of Commerce does a bus tour every year that’s narrated or guided by the Office of Economic Development. And it’s a new development. So this last year, it was in October, we stopped at Cannon Beach to show everybody that you know this is happening and opening in January and Cole hopped on the bus and talked about everything that was going on. So just really a full-on public relations assault year round is, is what I would recommend.
Also, I think when you can get different sorts of events held at the park, those are really great to promote. Plus they also are very willing to give us like day passes to our corporate partners for different events. So we’ll hand them out at our business and baseball events to developers and brokers and people who probably have not seen the park yet. So it just introduces them to the park where they might not have otherwise had an opportunity to see it
Surf Park Central: Is there anything else you think is worth mentioning for the surf-anchored real estate industry?
O’Donnell: I think it’s important to reiterate, you know, coming to the table with all of your amenities, and think about how it helps the community and helps drive economic impact or is important for a project. It’s the importance of being able to tell your story in a really clear way and have a plan laid out on how you think it fits into the community and into the overall region as a destination driver. But then also, it’s how you plan the site.
We worked with Cannon Beach at length on their site plan, so having something that you feel is able to fit well on the site, but then also being a little bit open to suggestions and changes on how things might lay out better if it were just shifted a bit, because then we’re changing our standards for development in Mesa and we have a higher standard now than even just 10 years ago. So being open to those suggestions and willing to take some level of critique.
I think it’s really important to hire an architect and a contractor who has done something like this before. I know not every contractor has built a surf park, but somebody who has experience, especially working with the city too is really important. And just understanding zoning, sometimes there needs to be a zoning change that takes time. Understanding the timeline for something like this is likely going to be extended because of the technical aspects of how the surf park is built and everything that goes into it.
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