A $50 million surf pool proposed for Alameda Point, on San Francisco Bay, has been negotiated with one developer for nearly a year without ever being opened to competing bids. In July, the founder of a rival wave-pool company asked the city council to explain why. The council took the question behind closed doors and hasn't said anything publicly since.
What's actually proposed
Neptune Beach Surf Club wants to build a 5.5-acre facility at Enterprise Park, part of the decommissioned Alameda Point naval base, anchored by a 2-acre Endless Surf lagoon with room for about 50 surfers. The project is led by William Duncanson of BAR Architects & Interiors, with Pro Swell handling surf-park operations and Urban Mix Development as a partner. Beyond the water, the plan includes a bar and restaurant open to the public, a man-made beach with cabanas, a canoe club, a skate pump track, and a converted Navy building holding the surf center, gear rentals, a community room, and public restrooms. Pricing intent published so far: $85 an hour for beginner waves, $145 for intermediate A-frame, $200 for advanced Point Break settings, with gear and a dry-land lesson included for beginners. Duncanson has said the team looked at other sites before landing on Alameda: "We've looked at doing this elsewhere, but Alameda's the best spot." Groundbreaking is pitched at 24 to 30 months out with a 2029 opening target, though nothing has been approved yet and no application has been filed.
How it became a no-bid deal
Neptune first pitched the city in May 2025. Public records obtained by the Alameda Post later showed that two other parties reached out around the same time: Business France, a French firm that inquired through San Francisco's economic development office, and SurfLoch, the pneumatic-wave company run by Tom Lochtefeld, the inventor of the FlowRider and the technology behind Palm Springs Surf Club and RIF010 in Rotterdam. Neither was pursued, and there's no record Alameda ever responded to Business France at all. On October 21, 2025, the city council voted unanimously to authorize staff to prepare a long-term lease agreement with Neptune specifically, without a competitive process.
SurfLoch pushes back
On July 3, 2026, Lochtefeld went public, formally asking the council why a project of this scale was moving forward through negotiation with one predetermined developer instead of an open solicitation. His pitch is structurally different from Neptune's: rather than leasing public parkland, SurfLoch proposed buying commercial land at Alameda Point outright, putting the development risk on the buyer, generating a one-time sale for city infrastructure, and returning the parcel to the property tax rolls, which a long-term lease to a single operator would not do. He'd raised the same point with the city as early as July 2025, before the council authorized the Neptune lease: "In view of potential community resistance, my group would prefer a location that is already targeted for commercial use."
Where it stands now
The city council discussed lease price and terms with Neptune in closed session on July 7, 2026. Closed sessions aren't public, and nothing about the outcome has been reported since, by the Alameda Post or anyone else. As of this writing, that's nearly two months of silence on a $50 million public-land deal that a credible competing developer has publicly challenged.
Neptune Beach Surf Club has a page in our directory, marked under development with no confirmed timeline, the same category as Newport Beach's Snug Harbor Surf Park: a real proposal with real money behind it, but not yet a project with a filed application or a settled land deal. We'll update it, and this page, once the city actually says something.
