Surf Park Summit 2025 addressed this pain point with a panel titled “Funding the Dream: How Developers are Financing Surf Parks.” Using a hypothetical $100 million surf park as a baseline, moderator Orion Corcilius (Managing Partner at Vandever Capital), led panelists Dan Gangwish (Managing Director at Piper Sandler), Brent Templeton (EPR Properties), Tip Brown (Venture Realty) and Nick Edelman (CEO & Co-Founder at Aventuur) through how real projects come together—and where most developers get stuck.

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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.

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

Wavegarden is a leader in the surf park space, with multiple facilities currently open and operating with dozens more in the works.

Seán Young, Wavegarden’s Head of Development Projects, joins episode 19 of Beyond the Ocean. Young discusses his role in helping parks go from concept to reality and the steps new surf parks must take to create a successful surfing experience. He also looks at what’s to come for Wavegarden and the surf park industry as a whole.