The Man Behind The Lake

Alright, let’s start from the top. 

Yeah, so I grew up in Winter Haven Florida, which is just outside of Orlando - the water ski capital of the World. Growing up, water skiing and water sports were just so normal. It's a part of the culture there where people did it before work and after work, and so that had a big influence on me. I grew up barefooting and then started getting into wakeboarding when I was probably 13, and then throughout High School I got really into it. 

Then I moved away for college, got a job, and stuff like that. And when I came to Richmond, wakeboarding just wasn't very accessible. Which led to the idea of building a cable park here. 

I brainstormed with some friends in Chesterfield a while back who wanted to build a cable on some land just for fun, but we ended up not being able to get through the zoning on that.

The other problem with cable parks and lakes is they take up a lot of land, and affordable land is in the middle of nowhere. Which makes it hard to get people to go there. Which makes it hard to do business. Unlike Europe, where cables are all over the place there.There's lots of natural water in those major cities, making cables more accessible.

And so I knew that to build a cable, I needed to build stuff around it in order to offset that cost, monetize it and to create that cool immersive experience where you don't come out just to wakeboard; you come out to watch people, grab a beer, wait for your kids… overall a place you’d want to be. So yeah, the sum of the parts are better than the parts individually, and creates a really unique destination.

And location was important too right because I mean, we're literally right next to one of the largest turf sports complexes ever. 

Yeah, Richmond’s the fastest growing area in the state right now. It's growing 27% faster than Loudoun County. You have just a lot of people coming into this area.

Richmond also has a unique distinction that half of the US population can drive here in a day, or at least a 12hr drive. That’s about 100-160 million people. And that's a reason why the massive sports complex across the street is so successful. 

What was permitting like when you were getting serious about the project?

So to build the lake we have to go through zoning and lake designing, which took a little over three years. Then we had to go through the local environmental engineering department, then the state department of Environmental Quality, and then we had to go through what's called an individual mandate through the EPA at the federal level. 

And all these processes are concurrent. So you have to do one before you do the other then you go back and forth and so they don't overlap in time. So it's just very very difficult. 

And then on top of that part of our Lake on the corner in order to balance the site it became a dam and so we're actually building up the soil to hold back the water right along 288 because of that. 

We also had to go through a state department. that regulates building dams. And that was a whole another process, especially next to a road like 288 too. Which we had to do a dam failure analysis and grade analysis and provide all that data and give it to the department that manages that. 

And If you're impacting wetlands or streams in the state of Virginia, you have to buy credits to offset your impacts. and so when we went to buy credits, there were none available. It took us about another year and a half to acquire and  buy like six Wetland credits. And we were buying 0.3 at a time point six at a time as they became available. 

Even though we were making a lake, they looked at it like this is an impervious area. So to them the lake and a parking lot would be treated with the same rules.

Also you were telling me about needing to create a flow in the lake too?

Yeah, so in most lakes they don't do this, and every cable park is different. And also water quality works differently depending on where you are geographically. But in our lake we wanted to make sure we have good water quality. 

And so we'll test it regularly, but we're putting drains at one in the lake that we can pump out the water just like the bottom of a pool and send it to the other end of the lake lake and pump it up through natural wetlands that will treat it. So it keeps the water moving very slow. Like, every seven days it turns over.

There's no blueprint for building a lake. It doesn't really get done. And so we were kind of writing the rules as we went. Especially when it came to operating in water quality and face of that nature. 

We had to literally write the book on it. 

And when we actually got all of those done and we're ready to close on our construction loan in April 2020, which was the week covid sort of started breaking out. 

Based on the plans, it looks like you thought more about the holistic experience than just the cable park. 

The people riding in the cable Park end up becoming the entertainment for someone who's sitting on a patio having dinner drink the beer. It's something fun to watch, and something that's different. And so that It just creates a very cool and unique environment that can't be replicated. 

It may not be as unique as Orlando where I grew up, where there's bunch of spots on the water to eat and hang out, but to do it here at Richmond and Central Virginia. It's just gonna create a very unique atmosphere.

But…If you're not into cable riding and wakeboarding in general, watching people going around in a circle isn’t the most exciting thing to watch. So I felt like I needed something that was a little bit more fun to watch and something that was more year-round as well. The amphitheater's good for concerts, but I felt like I needed a bigger attraction to give it that little validation, just something cooler to watch that has more stuff going on. 

That's when I found the US national whitewater center. And so I started looking at that. I'm like, all right. This has everything you can get up close. It's fun to watch people rafting the waters moving it's excitement and then you can put it in this immersive environment that other people are going to want to come to and so I reached out to the people who built that and started learning more about it started getting numbers on performance. Is it a good model? Does it make money? And I started realizing like this is more viable because it's been done so I could physically show you here's an example of where it's been done. And so we planned on building one through zoning.

But along with some logistical issues too, the local kayak enthusiasts didn't want it. And I had a lot of opposition from people who kayak here in our city. So I'm like man, why am I taking all this risk and building this big thing if the local scene doesn’t want it?

Good for you for listening that there's just bulldozing through it. 

And then this literal cowboy in Waco, Texas proved a surf park concept over there at BSR. It's a smaller footprint, but it makes actual legitimate waves as good as you would find in the ocean. Which got me excited about bringing surf to The Lake. 

How did you decide on the technology for the wave pool? 

So we talked with all the different companies. You want to make sure you have a company behind it that's going to stick around for a while. A company that you believe in and are good people with a good mission. And one that can also deliver good waves of course. Because it's not standalone, this thing has to work.Because if it doesn't I’ve got a hotel and restaurants next to it staring at an empty pool, or a pool that doesn't make great waves. It’s risky. I mean look at the US mall that got built in every city. And when those big boxes started pulling out, they failed. And so If what we're doing is entertainment as an anchor, you got to get it right. 

One's being built in Virginia Beach. And I mean Korea, Japan, Brazil now have one and there's over a hundred on the drawing board around the world right now. So It went from kind of being by ourselves with a handful of other kooky guys who wanted to build these wave pools, to now having developers coming in when we want to build one. 

But yeah, I think we're in a better place now. And if you look at the industry now even in the past 12 months, I mean, I'm going to Germany to look at a pool that’s not open yet, but they're putting the final touches on it. It's the first Endless Surf one and I know they've learned lessons and hopefully we'll learn from them. 

So you’re using Endless Surf?

Yea

Nice. So will it look similar to the one that's in Munich. 

Very similar. So the wall that generates the wave there is 320 long. Our’s is 40 feet longer, at 360 feet. 

And that's the funny thing too. When we were first planning this, we were considered big for these pools (besides Kelly Slater's). Now, we're on the smaller end and there's project around the works that are 60 Chambers with 600 feet long which is just crazy. Hats off to them. That's gonna be an amazing spot. 

And I know you have the amphitheater and the green space and everything too. Are there ideas for hosting future surf comps?

We'll definitely have local type grassroots competitions because that's part of these sports; bringing everyone together to compete at different levels. So that will definitely be a big component of it. And then when the opportunity arises we'll try and bring in those big tournaments if they work out. 

Was it difficult to get investors on board originally?

It's difficult and still is difficult. Every step of the way, we're always raising more money as we build different components. And yeah, it was always hard. It was kind of more like, you got to start off slow and work your way up. 

I didn't come from a real estate background. So I had my fair share of skeptics when I started. 

my background before this was in mineral processing technology, and then before that I was an airline pilot. And so literally had no background in real estate development at all. Which I think was also a major benefit. I didn't have any preconceived notions of ‘this is how you do real estate’, and I think that’s really helped. 

What do you feel like some of your bigger challenges right now or will be your bigger challenges going forward? 

Every day presents new challenges. I would say where we are, we're kind of past the hump of planning and permitting and most of the big infrastructures are now in place. That was huge. We moved 300,000 yards of dirt. That was a full year of just moving dirt. 

But yeah, now we’re where I say we compete with the other real estate developments and our risk going forward is really just market risk. Interest rates went up, so that's a challenge, and you're borrowing leverage goes down.

Did you sell the dirt too?

We moved it to the front of the lake. And so we balance the whole site from a dirt standpoint. But since we dug a big hole and made a burn for the lake, we created really cool topography for the entertainment portion and the retail buildings and then we moved to dirt to the front of the site to build up where those buildings are now.

But because we're doing that you had to move dirt for a year before you couldn’t start putting utilities in because some of the utilities were 30 feet in the air. No developer would in the right mind do it that way. Because it's just a takes so much time. But creating that topography was an important choice for this. I think because I didn't come from this background, I wasn't set in my way of this is how real estate should happen, and focused on making the best experience here possible.

And then quite honestly just being super cheap and just knowing that high risk, we're going a long way, don't spend the money unless there's a goal that you're trying to achieve building you're trying to get to just being very very cautious and diligent of where every dollar spent.

So how did you learn all this stuff? 

So I just asked a lot of questions and I've had a ton of help along the way. I’ve got good engineers, good architects, good project managers, good attorneys. So you surround yourself with good people and then ask a lot of questions. 

Then I was very fortunate to find those people who weren't like’ you're crazy’, and they provide you a lot of guidance too. And then just trust your gut and read a lot of books and just make decisions Make them quick, but then you can't be afraid to say ‘all right. This didn't work. I messed up. Let's back up. Let's try going this way.’

and totally Right, even when it comes down to The Branding of the line like that whole process. Yeah. Yeah.

So Endless Surf is the pool… who's bringing the towers? 

WakeParx 

How is it working with them?

Yeah. I mean they're awesome. Again, wakeboarding was my main passion. It's definitely their passion too. And so I enjoy those calls talking with those guys because it's fun to get to dream a little bit, and I just enjoy those conversations. 

I don't know how to operate a cable. I've never operated one, but they can kind of come in and they got the blueprint for it all so they can help set you up.

Do you ever chat with folks building the pool in Virginia Beach?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm super excited about those guys.They have a similar concept with a multi-use development around it. I think once these are both up and running, these will be the two closest surf parks in the world. 

Kind of goes back to my whole theory of entertainment is an anchor putting these things together makes some of the parts more than the individual parts and just restaurants. I think nowadays three restaurants together is better than one restaurant without a lot around it. 

Right, people want to go to Scott's addition because there's restaurants and breweries next to each other. So I think having a Surf Park nearby in Virginia Beach, our people will want to go over there and try that one. It's like surfing a different break. Still barrels and air waves and slabs and different types of waves, but they're gonna just be different with different tech. (They’re using Wave Garden.)

Will there be a combo pass for both Wake and Surf at The Lake? 

Yeah, so we want you to come here and spend a day. So, the surf is an hour in the pool, and then after that you're pumped. You're excited. Try the cable. Maybe go in the aqua course. Or go into the stand up paddle part of the lake, and then you’re super tired, bands playing you're like, okay, let's grab dinner get a couple drinks. Now, you're sitting over there watching other people riding their sessions and then, it becomes a whole great day.

I bet your old Chesterfield Dream Team is stoked on the cable finally coming to life, huh? 

I mean, we've been at it so long now, their kids have gone to college and moved away but yeah, I think everyone's just the really excited just for the uniqueness of it all.