A Wavegarden surf park was once upon a time destined to occupy a roughly 200-acre land mass just to the southwest of Fort Pierce, Florida, along a divide between farmland and subdivisions. Now, as Treasure Coast Newspapers’ TCPalm reports, it may become a data center (and a shopping center).
For five years and counting, a surf park and housing development plan have been underway in Koa Bay, “a community built for surfers,” per Koa Bay’s website. As it happens, the area just northwest of Interstate 95 is now in consideration for 26 acres of “general commercial” use and 174 acres of “light industrial” use. The new application makes no two ways about it, and the project’s owner says that if that proposal isn’t accepted, a commercial and residential project will still be underway, but the surf park is affirmatively nixed.
Koa Bay project owner and principal of Decvon Enterprises Chad LaBonte says that membership and payment fees already collected are being rendered back to early subscribers and investors, citing lack of funding: “After several years of trying, we could not raise the necessary capital to build the surf park,” he told TCPalm in an email.
LaBonte also cited electrical transmission lines crossing the property that posed understandable-if-true threats. But then five years in, it’s hard not to wonder why construction for the original project never even broke ground.
“With the advent of data centers, we realize the property’s limiting factors for a residential and surf community are enormous assets that make the property ideal for a data center development,” LaBonte said.
Was that the plan all along? Anybody’s guess, but, again, it lends suspicious minds sufficient fodder. Another data center anywhere is a tried-and-true downer for anyone with any interest in water for surfing or anything else, but the possible bright side? “We are actively looking for alternative sites in the St. Lucie County market,” says LaBonte.
For its wide and varied but largely lackluster surf, the Sunshine State could surely use another wave pool (or three) to keep its surfing community sated…
Related: 2 Million Tires Were Sunk Off Florida In The ‘70s. What Are They Doing Now?
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