Hokie alumni help make waves in Virginia Beach entertainment

Virginia Tech alum Billy Almond '78, a lifelong surfer and principal landscape architect at WPL in Virginia Beach,  long dreamed of a surf park — perfect waves every nine seconds, year-round. After other Hokie alums supported his vision and music superstar Pharrell Williams got on board, that dream became a reality for Virginia Beach.

Almond pitched the idea of a surf park to members of Venture Reality Group more than seven years ago, a meeting he secured one Saturday morning at the dry cleaners while talking with one of the group's developers.

Williams saw the initial concept renderings for Atlantic Park — including an indoor-outdoor live entertainment and events venue, shopping and dining, and the only human-made surf park within an urban context this close to the actual ocean — and knew the huge impact it could have on his hometown. He threw his weight behind the idea and helped to seal the deal.

“This will be a place for those looking forward, the innovators and the creators, the people pushing Virginia Beach into the future. You can see why I’m so excited to be part of [Atlantic Park] — it connects me to my childhood and the place that made me and so many others who we are today,” said the music icon whose hits include “Happy,” a song he wrote for the movie "Despicable Me 2."

Surfnomics

Almond grew up in Virginia Beach, about 900 feet from the dune line in one direction and about 700 feet from a state park in the other. He spent his entire childhood outdoors.

“My feet hit the sand when I was just a toddler,” said Almond. “I grew up on the beach, and it was just part of our life and culture growing up.”

By age 8, Almond was begging his father for a longboard surfboard from California, the only place at the time you could get one. His father surprised him with one for his birthday in the summer of 1960, convinced that surfing was “just a fad.”

The only time Almond wasn’t surfing was during the five years he spent in the architecture program at Virginia Tech and the year he spent working in Blacksburg after graduation. Many of his friends never left the beach, but Almond’s father insisted he be a “surfer with an education.”

“He never went to college, but I did, the first kid in the family,” Almond said. “And there’s so many of us out there — lawyers, doctors, and others who are practicing and they surf.”

Almond moved back home in 1979 and went right back into the water. Today, he is still catching waves on his longboard, and he isn’t alone.

Surfing is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, Almond said, and it isn’t only boards — it’s the gear and the entire culture surrounding the sport. This economics of surfing, known as “surfnomics,” was the focus of the development team’s pitch to the city when its members first brought up the idea of building a surf park at the site of the former Dome, a civic hub for anyone who grew up in Virginia Beach prior to its demolition in 1994.

“That’s where we went to roller skate, that’s where we went for the fair and all kinds of community-based shows,” Almond said. The Rolling Stones, Jimmi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, The Who and many other iconic names in music played at the Dome.

Hokie connections

As a member of the Resort Advisory Commission, Almond saw countless plans to fill that land start and then fail. He knew a surf park would be a game changer, and he pitched the idea with industry experts to Venture Reality Group. However, it was a call to David Keith '87, current CEO of Hanbury, that proved instrumental.

Almond said a developer from Venture Realty Group called Keith, saying, "I got Billy Almond in here talking about some kind of surf thing. Does that make any sense to you?" Keith replied, "Well, hang on. I've got a recent graduate we just hired from Tech, and he did his senior thesis on a surf park at the Dome," Almond said.

Alec Yuzhbabenko ’15, now a design principal at Hanbury, was born and raised in Ukrane but moved to Virginia Beach in his youth, where he spent his time skating and surfing like Almond. That culture inspired his project and continues to inspire his designs.

“[David] walks out of the meeting and taps on my shoulder and said, ‘Hey, bring your thesis book. There’s a developer that wants to propose on the same site you did your thesis on two years ago,’” Yuzhbabenko said.

Yuzhbabenko shared his ideas, and Venture decided to pitch the project to the city. Atlantic Park is on track to open in summer 2025.

The journey has been a long one — seven years, several mayors, more than 20 city council members, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a myriad of plan changes — but a collaborative one.

Hanbury leads the Atlantic Park development, collaborating with firms Gensler and Cooper Carry to bring the vision to life. Almond has collaborated with landscape architects at Kimley-Horn to design the green space around Atlantic Park.

Almond believes the surf park will become a transformative space. “It’s very Disney-esque. People have no idea what’s coming.”

Other Hokies are contributing to the project, including contractor W.M. Jordan, led by John Lawson ’75, and Century Concrete, owned by Preston White ’62.

“I couldn’t count the number of Hokies involved but it’s significant,” Almond said. “It spans architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, and construction.”

Virginia Tech instills that there’s a bigger purpose in you than just the immediate, said Yuzhbabenko. “When you come together, you can do more.”