Alameda's surf pool would take a quarter of a waterfront park

Walk west from Encinal High School on Central Avenue and the island runs out of houses. What comes next is old Navy tarmac, a closed recreation building, a sandy beach and a boat ramp where an outrigger canoe club keeps its boats. A private group wants to fence part of that ground and pour a wave pool into it.

On Wednesday, November 4, at 5:30 p.m., the Alameda City Council holds its first public workshop on the idea. The item asks the council how to set up an exclusive negotiating agreement with Neptune Beach Surf Club for Enterprise Park, a 21-acre shoreline park at Alameda Point that has never had a master plan. Nothing gets approved Wednesday. What the council says will decide whether one company gets the only seat at the table.

This is a story about who gets to plan a public park, and what the West End gets out of it. The blocks closest to the site belong to what Houseberry maps as the West End, where the typical home price was about $1.18 million in October 2026, according to Houseberry data. It's also the neighborhood with Alameda's lowest overall score, 3.4 out of 5.

A wave pool, a beach and a Navy building

The pitch is a pool that makes waves on demand. The design team, led by William Duncanson of BAR Architects and Interiors with the operator Pro Swell and UrbanMix Development, told the San Francisco Standard in June 2025 that the pool would hold up to 50 surfers at a time, with head-high waves at the back and beginner waves near a man-made beach. The machinery comes from Endless Surf, a Canadian company that pushes the water with blasts of air.

Around the pool: a public bar and restaurant, cabanas, a canoe club, a pump track for bikes and skateboards, and a surf center inside a converted Navy building with rentals, a community room and public bathrooms. Duncanson has said Hornet Field and the Alameda Community Sailing Center stay as they are.

The early prices were $85 an hour for beginner waves, $145 for intermediate and about $200 for the long point-break ride. For comparison, Palm Springs Surf Club listed beginner sessions at $100 and intermediate at $200 in August 2026, according to Wave Pool Magazine's price guide. The Bay Area has no surf pool open today.

What the staff report says, and what it skips

The staff report from City Manager Gerry Beaudin and Recreation and Parks Director Justin Long is short. It says an exclusive negotiating agreement "does not approve a project, lease, or development agreement." During the negotiating window, the city would run a community master plan for the whole park, with a kickoff workshop, several design alternatives, a Recreation and Parks Commission review and a final council vote. Neptune would pay for the outside design firm.

It lays out a long runway. The club approached the city in spring 2025. More than 1,200 people answered its survey that May, and about 150 came to a pop-up at the park on May 17. The Recreation and Parks Commission voted unanimously on July 10, 2025, to keep exploring. The council gave direction in closed session on October 21, 2025, and saw a draft agreement, again in closed session, on July 7, 2026.

What the report leaves out is most of what a neighbor would ask. It has no rent figure, no lease length, no job count and no traffic or parking estimate for a pool built to hold 50 surfers at once. It names no sea level rise risk. Under climate impact it lists none.

The levee question

That last line drew the sharpest pushback. Richard Bangert, who writes the Alameda Point Environmental Report, argued in the Alameda Post on October 28 that the city's own climate materials show a levee of some kind along this shoreline, plus a stormwater detention basin inside the park footprint. He would rather see the edge planned as a natural buffer first.

Duncanson answered on November 2 that a 2014 city drainage diagram shows the basin with flexible placement, and that reusing the Navy building would leave less paved surface than the tarmac there now.

Both can be right. A park this low on the bay will need a flood plan no matter what goes in it, and a master plan is where that plan belongs. The order matters. Draw the levee and the basin first, then see where a 2-acre pool fits.

A rival who wanted to buy, not lease

The exclusive part is the real fight. Records reported by the Alameda Post in February 2026 show two other parties asked about a surf pool in May 2025, within weeks of the city going public with Neptune. One was SurfLoch, run by Thomas Lochtefeld, whose company designs, builds and runs wave pools. He wanted to buy commercially zoned land in Alameda Point's Enterprise District, possibly with a hotel, rather than lease parkland.

On July 1, 2026, Lochtefeld wrote the council asking for a competitive solicitation. His case: a land sale shifts the risk to the buyer, brings in cash for Alameda Point's infrastructure bill (estimated at $840 million) and puts property on the tax rolls. A lease of public parkland does less of that.

The city has kept its focus on Neptune. According to the Post, staff did not mention SurfLoch's interest when the idea first went to the Recreation and Parks Commission.

West End prices held while Bay Farm slid

The surf pool would sit closer to West End homes than to any other part of Alameda. On Houseberry's Alameda neighborhood ranking, West End scores 3.9 out of 5 for amenities, below the East End at 4.4 and Bay Farm Island at 4.0. A beach club, a restaurant and a rebuilt shoreline path is the kind of thing that score measures.

Prices on the west side have held while the other side of town slipped.

Twelve months ago the two neighborhoods were within $10,000 of each other. In October 2026, Houseberry data puts West End at about $1.18 million and Bay Farm Island at about $1.08 million, even though Bay Farm scores 4.6 overall to West End's 3.4. Nothing at Enterprise Park explains that gap, since nothing there has changed yet. It does mean the West End is no longer the cheap side of the island. Citywide, the typical Alameda home was about $1.42 million in August 2026, according to the Houseberry Alameda city page.

The surf pool adds no housing, and the report doesn't pretend it does. The homes are coming on other Alameda Point land, about 2,300 of them by one count, and we covered the voucher fight holding up that pipeline in September. Those new neighbors will want a usable shoreline park more than anyone.

We'd let the surf club try, with the rent in public

We think the council should keep talking to Neptune. Much of Enterprise Park today is cracked tarmac and a Navy building that has been shut for two decades, and in the nearly 30 years since the base closed, the city has never drawn a master plan for it. A private group offering to pay for a master plan of all 21 acres, while risking that the plan leaves its pool out, is a good offer.

Exclusivity is a different question. Before the city locks itself into one negotiating partner, the public should see what a lease would pay and for how long, and the council should say plainly why a sale on commercial land, the SurfLoch idea, is or isn't a better deal. A quarter of a 21-acre public park is a lot to trade without that number on the table. We'd ask for it Wednesday.

Questions neighbors are asking:

Is the surf park approved?

No. Wednesday's item, file 2026-6404, asks for direction on how to set up exclusive talks. A lease, a design and the state-required environmental review would each come back in public later.

Will it cost Alameda money?

The club says the $50 million pool is privately financed. The staff report says any city costs beyond the master plan work would come back for a separate vote.

Can residents weigh in?

Yes. The workshop is in person at City Hall and on Zoom. The city has already posted public letters on the item, updated November 3.

Wednesday's workshop is the first time this deal gets argued in public instead of behind a closed door. Before it starts, compare West End with the rest of the island on our Alameda neighborhood ranking.

Sources

• City of Alameda, staff report, file 2026-6404, Enterprise Park ENA workshop, November 4, 2026 council agenda
• City of Alameda, City explores surf park concept at Alameda Point, May 7, 2025
• San Francisco Standard, wave pool plan at Alameda Point, June 22, 2025
• Alameda Post, Records Show Other Developers Sought Different Surf Pool Deal, February 5, 2026
• Alameda Post, Surf Pool Developer Questions No-Bid Contract, July 2026
• Alameda Post, Shoreline Surf Pool or Nature-Based Adaptation?, October 28, 2026
• Alameda Post, Neptune Beach Surf Club Response to Community Criticism, November 2, 2026
• Wave Pool Magazine, How much does it cost to surf a wave pool, August 27, 2026