Big wave machine by the sea rolling into El Segundo

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The coastal city of El Segundo is an unlikely location for a massive, new artificial surf park.Other California surf parks with machine-powered wave pools are inland, far from natural waves in places like Palm Springs and Lemoore in the San Joaquin Valley.This summer, an owner of one of those parks, Palm Springs Surf Club, bought 10 acres of land on a former aerospace campus in El Segundo.

The location is near a bonanza of sports enterprises that have sprung up in recent years, including a Topgolf entertainment complex and the training facility and headquarters of the Los Angeles Chargers football team.A company tied to billionaire Vinny Smith’s Toba Capital paid $54 million for the site, said Colin O’Byrne, president of Inland Pacific Cos., the development partner of Toba Capital.

Smith, a tech mogul and surfer, and a major investor in the Palm Springs Surf Club, reportedly got involved after testing a wave prototype.The El Segundo surf park, which has yet to be named, will hold about 5 million gallons of water in a 2.2-acre lagoon, O’Byrne said.

He hopes to secure city approval to start work on the project, valued at $175 million, in about six months.El Segundo is already a legit surfing town, known for its custom surfboard shapers and waves at El Segundo Beach Jetty.“El Segundo has been a mecca for surf culture since the 1950s,” City Councilman and surfer Drew Boyles said.

“But frankly, the surf out front is consistently poor-to-fair and it’s, like, absolutely crowded.So, this wave pool is going to be incredible.”Boyles likened the potential appeal of the surf park to Topgolf, which makes a point in its advertising of putting beginners at ease with swinging a club for fun while also appealing to experienced golfers.“Topgolf basically lowered the barriers to entry for people to get into the game of golf,” Boyles said.

“Wave pools are doing the same t...