Surf's not up: Palm Springs Surf Club wave pool has been ‘flat’ for months

When the Palm Springs Surf Club opened to much fanfare at the start of the year, it promised fine dining, beachy vibes, resort amenities and, most of all, the realization of a seemingly impossible dream: "world-class" surfing in the desert, as the developer put it.

So far, the club has seemingly delivered on all but one of those fronts. It's that surfing dream that has remained mostly unrealized as the club’s wave pool has been plagued by a series of mechanical problems that have left it closed to surfing most of the time.

The club's website currently displays a short statement saying the wave pool “remains flat for now, but we’re working tirelessly to restore surf operations.”

“While we don’t have a set date yet, we’re making great strides toward that goal,” the statement continues before adding that the wave pool is currently open for swimming, paddleboarding, kayaking and other non-surf activities.

The website does not say when the latest closure began. However, an April 25 post on the club's Facebook page said the pool had been closed to surfing and those with booked sessions would receive refunds. Nothing posted on the page since then suggests surfing had returned at any point.

About three weeks ago, the club’s account commented on a social media post asking about its status, saying it hoped the work on the wave pool would be done by August. That appears to be both the last update provided by the club and the only one that provided a concrete reopening timeline.

Staff members have not responded to several attempts by The Desert Sun to reach them for comment.

‘Manufacturing waves is difficult’

While plans for reopening remain unknown, what is clear, however, is that the pool has been closed to surfing far more often than it not, with one closure lasting from Jan. 10 to April 10, when surfing resumed just in time for the club to host a music festival during Coachella weekend that was put on by Goldenvoice .

But that opening proved short lived, as the Facebook announcement of another closure came just over two weeks later. That statement apologized to people with reservations, some of whom may have made travel plans around them, and said staff were working hard to get the pool up and running.

In the same statement, the club said “manufacturing waves is difficult” and “modern wave pool technology is an emerging field that is young and complex.” The statement suggested such technical problems were not uncommon, citing stories staff had heard from other wave pool clubs.

When The Desert Sun reached out to the surf club back in January for confirmation of the initial closure of the wave pool, a representative named Brian Alper responded that it would be releasing a statement once it had more details to share. But no statement was sent until the club announced the resumption of surfing in April.

Alper has not responded to repeated requests from The Desert Sun for more information, including this week.

However, an article published by the surfing lifestyle and news publication Beach Grit in January quoted a statement from Tom Lochtefeld, who it described as the creator of the surf pool’s technology. Lochtefeld explained that the technical problems resulted in part from a lightning strike that caused an “aberrant power condition.”

He added that the issue meant the pool was not able to generate the kind of waves that would appeal to the expert surfers who were expected to be a major part of the club’s clientele.

The club does not appear to have provided any details about what is behind the current closure.

But another surf publication, The Inertia, published a story in May that cited an unnamed source who said issues with the pool were the result of problems retrofitting its technology into the existing facilities where the park was built. The source also said there were problems with how the owners and investors “negotiated responsibilities between the array of contractors involved in delivering a complex project like this.”

The club was built on the site of Palm Springs’ former Wet N’ Wild water park, which was called Knott’s Soak City until 2013.

The January press release announcing the club’s opening said over $80 million had been invested into turning the park into a top-tier entertainment destination. The pool itself was touted as utilizing “advanced pneumatic wave technology” that would produce on-demand customizable waves ranging from two to seven feet high.

While the facility has so far failed to fulfill its namesake purpose, the restaurants, lazy river and other amenities continue to operate.The club is currently selling $42 general admission day tickets and $140 season passes that provided access to all the club’s amenities sans the surfing, including water slides, the lazy river, the splash pad and what is described as the resort pool.

A staff member who answered the phone at the resort Wednesday confirmed that the surf pool is currently open for swimming and other activities — sans waves. The club has also been hosting several events, including weekly adults-only pool parties with a DJ , a Memorial Day appreciation event for veterans and a charity auction planned for later this year.

Recent posts on the park’s social media page have advertised those offerings and events without mention of surfing at all.

Some, however, don’t seem too keen on giving up on their dreams of low desert swells: Those posts are often accompanied with questioners asking when surfing will return.  But it was one commenter who perhaps spoke for the surf community best when he wrote simply “Fire uuuuup those waves.”

Paul Albani-Burgio covers growth, development and business in the Coachella Valley. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and email him at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com .

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Surf's not up: Palm Springs Surf Club wave pool has been ‘flat’ for months