The Placer County Planning Commission approved plans for Alchemy Surf Resort on 24 September, clearing the way for a surf and hospitality resort in west Placer County, on the edge of Roseville. The county announced the decision the same day.
The project comes from Inland Surf Company and sits inside Placer One, a 2,000-acre masterplanned community from Taylor Builders that the county entitled in 2019 with a full environmental impact report. That matters more than it sounds. The surrounding masterplan already cleared its environmental review years ago, which is the step that has killed or stalled surf park proposals elsewhere.
What was approved
The county confirms a 5-acre surf lagoon with a separate standing wave pool beside it. The developer puts the whole project at 25 acres. Between the two sets of materials, the program is substantial:
- A 100-room hotel, with a rooftop bar per the developer's own materials
- 22 bungalows, a figure that comes from the developer rather than the county
- A 28,390-square-foot surf center
- An outdoor skate plaza and a children's playground
- Beaches and activity areas, spas and cold plunges
- An action sports hub with trampolines, climbing walls and indoor skate facilities
- Side shore hubs with food and beverage, retail, member services and gathering areas
"The project has gone through the county's planning and review process, and the approved plans provide a framework for the applicant to provide a unique recreational destination business to the community," said Placer County Planning Director Chris Pahule in the county's announcement.
Two waves on one site, which is still rare
The detail that makes this project stand out is the pairing. Inland Surf Company's materials name Wavegarden for the lagoon, describing it as a traveling-wave system, and Citywave for the deep-water standing wave.
Running both a traveling wave and a standing wave on one site is uncommon. Of the 85 parks in our directory, five combine two different wave systems, and every one of those five pairs a different combination: ADRENA in Saudi Arabia runs Endless Surf with a FlowRider, Waco Surf pairs PerfectSwell with a FlowRider, Revel Surf in Arizona runs SwellMFG alongside a UNIT Surf Pool, and Zion Shores in Utah is building PerfectSwell with UNIT. Alchemy would be the only Wavegarden and Citywave combination we track.
The practical case for it is straightforward. The two machines do different jobs. A lagoon gives you the actual motion of surfing, a paddle and a takeoff and a wave that runs away from you, at maybe ten to sixteen waves an hour. A standing wave gives you continuous minutes on your feet and rewards rail work, and it runs far more people through per hour. Pairing them lets one site serve a first-timer and a competent surfer on the same afternoon without either waiting on the other.
Northern California has been waiting
No wave pool is open in Northern California today. The nearest open lagoon to Sacramento is Kelly Slater's Surf Ranch at Lemoore, down in the Central Valley, and the closest Wavegarden Cove is DSRT Surf in Palm Desert, at the far southern end of the state.
Alchemy is not the only project trying to change that. Neptune Beach Surf Club in Alameda is working toward an Endless Surf lagoon in the Bay Area. Neither is built yet, so which one opens first in the northern half of the state is still an open question.
Good to Know
An approval is not a groundbreaking, and the dates here do not quite agree with each other. The county says Inland Surf Company is aiming to break ground in spring 2027. The developer's own project page says summer 2027, and adds that construction would take 18 to 24 months. Take the later end of both and this is a 2029 opening rather than a 2028 one.
There is also the money. Neither the county's release nor the developer's own project page announces closed financing, and that project page reads as an investment pitch, with a section headed The Opportunity setting out the entitlement timeline and a commissioned market study. Entitlement is the milestone that makes a project financeable, so the sequence is normal, but a funded project and an approved one are different things.
One more thing if you go digging. The project architect's own page lists a 103-key hotel, 21 bungalows and a 13,560-square-foot surf center, against the 100 rooms, 22 bungalows and 28,390 square feet that the county and the developer both give. Architect pages often reflect an earlier scheme, and the two current sources agree with each other, so those are the numbers above. It is worth knowing the third set exists.
We have moved Alchemy from announced to under development on our park page and recorded what the county confirmed. We will update it again when a groundbreaking date is set.
