Warren Smith Answers 9 Questions About Shell Point
Images courtesy of Warren Smith.
Warren Smith and his band of artists, surfers, renderers, city planners, and dreamers, have something big coming for you.
Welcome to Shell Point Surf Club, the wave pool of your dreams, coming to Panoma City Beach, Florida, in a matter of years. Following city approval just yesterday, we are proud to announce that the project is moving forward and that pretty soon you will be able to get in the water and be shown up by some of the world’s most talented surfers while your significant others watch from the sidelines, sipping a cocktail and feeling embarrassed for you.
It is not only a place for surfers to surf consistent waves, perfect waves… fuck… perfect waves. Oh, yeah, but it isn’t just about surfing, it’s a place for people to congregate. It’s a place for the community of artists and skaters and creatives to meet and bond over the love of water and waves. It isn’t a place for the rich to rip and flex their muscles, rather it’s for the people. Named almost sarcastically for the beloved ‘surf spot’, Shell Point solves that area of the Gulf’s lack of waves problem while also facilitating the progression and cohesion of culture. But enough of me yammering praise, let’s text Warren some questions.
These answers have been edited for clarity, but not that much.
This is a rendering of the pool soon to come.
Where did this all come from?
It all stemmed from a trip to Waco with Fat Tire and my friend Ronnie Flynn. We had the park for twelve hours and I was as psyched as I was on my first surf trip out of the country. I surfed like eleven of the twelve hours. Couldn’t believe how fun it was, so I got right to work on how to get one in my hometown of Panama City Beach Fl, on the Gulf Coast. We have really bad surf and very inconsistent, so this thing seemed like a no-brainer there.
What was the process like?
Lots of sleepless nights jumping into a suit filled void of big words. But luckily I had a very good friend of mine come along for journey, Cole Davis. He’s the first person I called. He’s a lawyer and has experience with developments and the city processes, so together we built an amazing team of very talented individuals, and had the backing of our local community, local investors and a local development company, all that believed whole hearty in us and the value the project would bring the community.
How exactly do you get the god damn gaul to pull something this massive off?
It was the perfect combination of a slight bit of biz and operational experience from the surf industry and starting clothing brands, mixed with Cole’s city and development experience, and all mixed with with a massive amount of not knowing what we were doing that sent us into the deep end of the commercial real estate stratosphere with very big appetites and bright eyes filled with naiveness. Sometimes knowing less is a huge benefit.
What were the major challenges and surprise successes?
Major challenges were building a team of talented individuals that fill out the skill set matrix, and surrounding yourself with people much smarter than you, and finding those people and convincing them to come along for the ride. A huge surprise success was teaming up with a large local development company as a land partner, how much they loved the project from day one. That really kickstarted everything.
What has community feedback been like?
Minus a very small few, it has been overwhelming positive. The online comments on all the news stories are like 95% psostive, and as we all know anything that has online comments is almost the exact opposite ratio.
Who are your partners? Who's all in?
We have a huge team of about forty people, all with various skill sets. Its really insane actually how many believed in us. Our extremely supportive group of investors, especially the oringal local ones who have been with us from the very begginng through all the ups and downs. Without them we wouldn’t be here. Blair Conklin is an investor as well, and our gold pool shredding ambassador, which is just insane. And of course our wave tech partner endless surf, and our consultant group Pro Swell and head Archetic Bill Duncanson from Bar Architects. They’ve all belong good friends in this journey, pretty freaking epic.
You've sent over all of these assets and art related things, how do you think you pull in these creative things and tie it in to the pool?
Well I’ve been watching the space for a while, and it seemed to me a big thing that was missing was the cultural importance and identity of these things. They can very easily feel like stale real estate developments, and because my background is in the surf industry and being apart of and creating stuff like that, just seemed natural and responsible really to make these things have a bit of life to them. These aren’t water parks, their surf spots. And with that comes seventy five years of culture that we have all dedicated our lives too, and should be included in some shape or form with these things. At least to me
What are your goals for the project? What's the mission?
The inspiration came from this island here called Shell Island, which is one of the most beautiful spots in the world, right here in town. Emerald blue green water, white sand, tons of beautiful natural vegetation, but again with mostly no waves. But that journey surfers do to have that perfect surf day at a beautiful beach, thats why we do it. Run around the world on grueling flights and sleeping in our board bags to have a killer day surfing in beautiful water with friends and family and some fish tacos and a beer a the end of the day. So I thought the concept is this perfect beach day at Shell Island, only now with a perfect wave everyday and you don’t need a boat to get there.
What is the gnarliest thing you'll want to do in therer?
Uhhhh nothing, im old.
