From BusinessDen.com (George Dempoulos):
“If you build it, they will come,” said [Ben Nielsen], an engineer at Denver’s McLaughlin Whitewater Design Group, a subsidiary Merrick & Co. “I think these projects make a market for activities like stand-up paddle boarding, kayaking, really anything having to do with any kind of watercraft. I don’t think it’s a huge leap of faith to say that this park will help make a surfing market in Denver.”
Nielsen and his team plan to redevelop a half-mile stretch of the South Platte River, just north of Union Avenue, into a park with a jungle gym, trail system and underwater ramps for river surfing. The $14 million complex, called “River Run Park,” aims to add six surfable waves to the Platte once it’s complete in spring 2017.
The first phase, which is under construction and set to open this year, will feature ramps on the bottom of the riverbed that create waves by diverting the water’s flow. One of the ramps, called a “waveshaper,” has hydraulic pumps that can change its angle in order to alter the size of the waves.
The second phase, which will include a trailhead, fish habitat and four more wave features, will begin construction this year and is slated for completion in 2017.
The project is being funded through grants from Arapahoe County, the City of Englewood and the State of Colorado, Nielsen said. Get Outdoors Colorado (GoCO), a public institution that uses proceeds from lottery sales to fund outdoor projects, will vote on a resolution to fund the project next month.
Surfing rivers is different from riding the massive waves off the coast of Hawaii or California. For one, river surfers don’t actually move down the river while they ride. The waves from the underwater ramps push surfers in the opposite direction of the river’s flow, keeping them essentially in the same spot.
And river surfboards differ in design from their ocean counterparts. River boards generally use more fiberglass in their construction because they have to stand up to rocky riverbeds.
