Sir John Kirwan: All Blacks legend on his plans for a surf park in Auckland

Sir John Kirwan has been given the ‘all clear’ for a $100 million surf park project in Auckland. 

The artificial surfing pool will make between 600 and a thousand waves per hour, with more than 30 different settings for all skill sets. 

If further approvals go ahead, construction can begin on the 43-hectare area in Dairy Flat later this year. 

The All Black legend told Mike Hosking that there'll be a data centre and hotel, so it'll appeal to more than just the surfers. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven away from eight, we'll give them the debate around infrastructure
this past week or so, what are a lief to
have a few entrepreneurs about the place with news of
something bold and progressive. One hundred million dollar surf park
in Auckland's been given the green light full precinct. In
Dairy Flat, you got a wavepool at it's heart. You've
got a farm to table restaurant, accommodation of the high
performance facilities. There's a data center, renewable energy. So John
Kerwin is one of the partners, and listen he's with us.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Morning mate, Mike, I'm going to I'm going to take
you surfing. I'm going to have you surfing, like in
about a month. You'll be out there.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
For entertainment purposes. Only I can assure you how long
has this been in the pipeline.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
The boys first contact of me about four years ago. Now,
I mean the wavepark sort of boom has taken off
around the world. You probably remember seeing Kelly Slater's wave pool.
But Kelly's was you know, Kelly's is probably not its
expensive as commission not viable because can't produce enough waves.
So these wave parks produced a thousand waves a thousand

(00:57):
waves an hour and you can do sort of teen
fifteen different settings. So we've probably been a year in
the consent. We went for fast track consenting which which
was really interesting and yeah, so it's been going now
for probably three years as concept and money and then
a year for consent. So just absolutely staked. Yesterday we've

(01:20):
been out to the you know, to dairy Flat, spoken
to the community. We've got another meeting with them next week.
They're really excited. Good.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's just when you talk about the money, the international money.
Is there international money coming in for good ideas?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, there'll be a little bit, but probably more New
Zealand money. You know. We will now start to raise
some money to pay for it. There's a little bit
of overseas money the Ovent tour, the overseas companies run
by New Zealander, so we'll be looking to raise some
money for some investment.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, for sure need to be more than just a
wave park, did you need you know, obviously going to
have somewhere to week the hotel. I find interesting data
center as a stroke of genius. So you've got a
data center eats up a lot of power, creates a
lot of heat, that'll heat the water. All of that's clever.
So you put all these pieces together.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I think you have to. Now is it a thing
like this? For me, it's about community. So what does
the community want now? They want somewhere you know, just
can't be for surfers, you know, although there's fifty four
thousand surfers in Auckland alone, So the data center makes
it sustainable. We're very keen to try and put a
solar farm up there as well, try and make it
as off the great as possible. You know, if if

(02:31):
I take you to surfing, you know, maybe our beautiful
wives will go to have dinner while we're having a surf.
You know, it's got to be for the community. So
for us it was sustainability, community and fun fantastic.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
So it's a destination in itself in that sense. You
build it, they will come because deary flat for people
listening around the country, you don't know it's in the
country is and there's not remotely near the water at all.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, exactly. And you know the thing with New Zealand
surfers as we all travel, you know, with you're an
Auckland surfer, you travel out to Murdai up to charity
places like that. So yeah, we think it's a destination.
We want to put you know this forty on acres,
so we want to put some bike tracks up and
just make it a real community center.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Super exciting. Go well this weekend, Make good to catch
up as always brilliant ideas John Kerwin. For more from
the Mic Asking Breakfast.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
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Speaker 1 (03:25):
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