MESA, Ariz. — For 50 years, Arizona had Big Surf in Tempe where people could surf in the desert. The popular summer destination closed in 2019, leaving residents high and dry.
Enter Revel Surf Park at Cannon Beach in Mesa.
“I've thought often that Arizona would be the perfect state if we just had waves,” the Owner of Revel Surf Park at Cannon Beach, Cole Cannon said.
Before Monday, the closest place to surf to central Arizona was about 200 miles away. Not anymore as the surf park opens at 3:00 p.m. on Dec. 16. This is a $45 million, 4.5-acre facility with four cliff jumping platforms ranging from six to 26 feet, restaurants, a skate park, an infinity wave pool, and the centerpiece of this tropical paradise being the two-acre surf lagoon that has three million gallons of water.
“A lot of gratitude. It's been a long hot journey building out here,” Cannon said. “Since we broke ground 1,344 days ago we are officially open to the public and we’re very excited about that.”
The entire development has been a long process in the making, but employees said it was all worth it.
“We went from plastering the bottom of the pool to the whole thing coming together and now we get to surf so it’s pretty sick,” Revel Surf Park employee Rachael Washburn said.
The park uses its own patented wave technology. Cannon said only five other companies in the world have something similar. It generates different kinds of waves for all levels of surfers.
“My business partner Matt is heavily responsible for a lot of that,” Cannon added. “It's a crew of about four of us who built it. We've been building the airplane while we've been flying at the same time, and we think we built something special.”
The technology runs on hydropower. Cole said the land they’re on used to be an alfalfa farm and the surf park consumes only about two percent of what the farm used.
“We consume about the same amount of water as one hole of a golf course. Our power is that of maybe two Corvettes for our entire wave machine,” he said.
And there’s plenty to do if you don’t want to surf. There are turf, cabanas with heaters and television sets, hot tubs, a beach grill that’s open to the public and more. This all took over four years to open.
“It turned out better than we hoped,” Cannon said. “We started thinking of the extreme nature of the people who would come here. Everything just got a little bigger and better. That was part of the reason for the delay. We just kept adding more amenities to it because we want our beachgoers to have a great experience.”
Revel Surf Park has 500 membership slots, but 300 were sold before they opened.
The surf park is a part of Cannon Beach which is still a work in progress.
Cannon Beach will have some restaurants that will open in the next two to three months. In 2025, it’ll add a movie theater and electric go-cart track next door. Then 60,000 more feet of restaurants and two hotels will be built in the next three years.
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