A $150 Million Surf Park Could Be Coming to Broadway at the Beach
Myrtle Beach City Council approved an incentive deal for WaveGarden Myrtle Beach, a $150 million-plus surf park at the old Palace Theatre site with a projected 2030 opening.
Category: news | Published: 2026-09-28
For years, the idea of a surf park in Myrtle Beach has been all talk and no waves.
This week, it got a whole lot more real.
Myrtle Beach City Council has approved an incentive agreement with WaveGarden Myrtle Beach — the city calls the project WGMB — to build a surf park and hospitality destination on the old Palace Theatre site at the corner of Highway 17 Bypass and 21st Avenue North, right next to Broadway at the Beach. The city puts the total private development at $170 million; under the agreement, the developer has to invest at least $150 million of its own money before seeing a dime of city help.
And the city isn't handing anything out upfront. The incentive — capped at $20 million — is structured as the "last money in," meaning the developer must be at least 80 percent done building before any incentive funding flows.
Here's what's planned: a 5.5-acre WaveGarden surf lagoon, a 150-room hotel, at least 20,000 square feet of food, beverage and retail space, plus sports tourism and other hospitality uses. The developer group includes Highgate, South Street Partners, Twin Point Capital and W.M. Jordan.
An independent analysis estimates the finished development could draw around 364,000 visitors a year, generating $58.1 million in annual spending at the park and another $12.7 million elsewhere in the area. That's not nothing for the Grand Strand.
The current projected opening date is March 1, 2030.
Now, a word of honest caution for the skeptics — and we know you're out there. This story first surfaced back in 2020, when a group called American Surf Parks pitched a similar idea under the "Surfworks" name with a 2021 opening that never happened. New developer group, new plan, new site — but until shovels are in the ground, this one stays in the "we'll believe it when we see it" file.
Still, council approval, a rezoned 28-acre site, and a signed incentive agreement with real money attached is further than this idea has ever gotten before.
If it happens, you'd be surfing man-made waves off 17 Bypass by 2030. So tell us — would you ride it?