With Community Support and a Large Economic Impact, Lost Shore Surf Resort Opens for Business

After nearly a decade in the making, Lost Shore Surf Resort has opened its doors. The surf park in Edinburgh, UK, brings new waves to Scotland with the help of a Wavegarden Cove pool.?

Besides being a great way to introduce more people to surfing and attract tourists to the country, the park is predicted to have a major economic impact. Along with creating 130 jobs, the park will contribute ￡11m to the local economy each year. Lost Shore is anchored by other nearby sports facilities and features resort-style amenities to allow guests to stay on-site.

Surf Park Central spoke to Lost Shore founder Andy Hadden about the process of developing a surf park and the road to finding funding. The large project opened in November with hundreds of guests, and according to Hadden, the Scotland winter won’t slow them down.

Surf Park Central: Lost Shore has officially been open for one week. What was the first week like for yourself and the park’s guests??

Andy Hadden: Everyone that’s visited has absolutely loved it from the surf to the food to the accommodation. Being a surfer myself, I’m particularly pleased with how great all the most crucial surfing elements have performed, from day one to improver (surfer level) and right up to the pros loving our big turn, barrel and air settings.?

I know our local demographics are going to get hooked on this. Now I want to open this up to the rest of the world. Come to Scotland we can keep you warm in the world’s warmest fleet of rental wetsuits and we’re going to give you the time of your lives, plus more good waves in a week than you could expect in a year.

Surf Park Central: This project was a decade in the making. Looking back ten years ago, what inspired you to step into the surf-anchored real estate space??

Hadden: I do look back to 10 years ago about what I thought to myself when I saw the (Wavegarden) test facility in the Basque Country. How could I not only build a wave park but actually how could I make it an institutional-grade wave park??

I thought if in 20 years time, there’s going to be 200 or 300 of these around the world, then that’s not going to just be rich people throwing money at it. There’s got to be a coherent business plan for that type of quantum. So I thought, how do I not just create a place that could spread joy amongst our local community, providing vital sport, leisure and tourism infrastructure, but how could we make it an institutional-grade investment, allowing us to source cheap capital and therefore remain in strategic control despite starting with neither money or land. We’ve achieved that goal and we couldn’t be happier with the results, the press, and the feedback from guests, both surfers and non-surfers.

Surf Park Central: What were the biggest challenges from developing to financing that you faced along the way??

Hadden: People taking you seriously was the real challenge. We knew what we were doing, but convincing others of that took a lot of time and energy. Understanding the metrics of what really constitutes a viable institutional grade investment proposition is something I don’t think others have quite got their head around, and it didn’t come easily for us either. But when you think about something daily for over a decade you figure out ways to align the interests of the dozens of parties involved, from pension funds to debt and equity and from suppliers to staff.?

I think being able to coherently explain all of this to people who were coming in fresh was the hardest part because on paper with appetite, some land and a bit of resources, I think everyone believes they can do it. This global confusion has slowed the market down and remains the most underestimated component of any aspiring developer. To do it truly right is not rocket science, but it takes time and energy in areas that lie outside the conventional thinking of most funders, developers and operators.?

Other more obvious challenges have been created market uncertainty. Things like Scottish independence referendums, Brexits, COVID, interest rate rises and increases in construction prices. So all of these elements just need to be taken on their merits and worked through without fuss. To keep our motivation through hard times we’ve kept strong ties into not only the surf community here, and the surf schools and bringing everyone on the journey, but the local politicians, and all of the people who work for us. When you then face those challenges, it’s these people who inspire and help you get through them. Having come from the investment and insolvency real estate world it’s clear to me that these are often the components that are ignored, but they shouldn’t be underestimated as ultimately they are value.

Read the full interview on Surf Park Central's website.