Developers of a proposed 20-acre wave lagoon off East Grove Street faced hours of questions about traffic, water use and lifeguards. A decision was pushed to September.

By John Barrella

July 25, 2026

MIDDLEBOROUGH — The pitch was for waves in a hayfield: a six-acre lagoon, 35 overnight cottages, 60-foot light poles and a machine built in Spain capable of generating a surfable break an hour from Boston and an hour from Providence.

What the developers got at Thursday night’s Zoning Board of Appeals meeting was something closer to a cross-examination — on septic capacity, wetsuit sanitation, evacuation planning, and above all, Route 28.

The board took no vote on the proposal from NSP LLC, continuing the hearing to Sept. 10 and agreeing to send the plans to Apex, the town’s outside peer-review consultant. A second, smaller petition to add apartments at 321 Wareham Street was also continued to the same date.

‘A world-class surf park’

Attorney Michael O’Shaughnessy, representing NSP, told the board the project would be “a world class surf park and training facility,” set roughly 400 to 500 feet back from East Grove Street behind the former Schobel farm property. The company is seeking three special permits: one because the buildings’ cumulative square footage exceeds 20,000 feet, one for adjustments to parking requirements, and one to allow lighting up to 65 feet in height under Section 4.11 of the zoning bylaw. The proposed poles are 60 feet.

O’Shaughnessy came with a bench of consultants — engineers from Bohler, a traffic engineer from Bowman Consulting, an architect from Studio Troika, and a public affairs representative from O’Neill and Associates — and told the board he would let “the smart people” field the technical questions.

The site plan calls for three main buildings: a “Surf Central” check-in and changing facility, a two-story hub building with retail, a restaurant, a rooftop deck and event space, and a wellness building fronted by a heated pool. Architect Jonathan MacAfee said the buildings were deliberately low-slung — about 35 feet at the highest point — and oriented inward toward the lagoon.

Renderings shown to the board depicted the view from East Grove Street as almost entirely screened by existing tree cover.

Chairman-level scrutiny came quickly. Asked what the site would look like after dark, MacAfee conceded no nighttime rendering existed. “That’s something we could develop for you for sure,” he said, adding that the fixtures are dark-sky rated and the light is aimed at the water rather than the property line.

Water, waste and 10,000 gallons

Principal Jerry Piccolo said filling the lagoon initially would take 8 million gallons, with roughly 7 million gallons a year lost to evaporation and spillage — about 22,000 gallons a day, plus another 10,000 gallons a day for the accessory buildings. Two wells have been identified on site, he said, but the town has indicated it can supply the water, which NSP would purchase. The gallons per day cited by Piccolo appeared less than what other estimates of at least 30,000 gallons per day had been considered.

“We would be drawing the same water from the same aquifer that the town is,” Piccolo said, “and we would have to purify it to our standard as well.”

The septic design sits uncomfortably near a regulatory cliff. The team said it is “hoping to be under the 10,000 gallon mark” — the threshold above which the state Department of Environmental Protection takes jurisdiction — and is seeking confirmation from the Board of Health, while reserving space for a treatment plant if needed.

An abutter who identified himself as the owner of property across Route 28 urged them not to cut it close. As an investor, he said, “I wouldn’t want to limit myself to shutting the door” at 10,000 gallons a day. Building capacity for 500 or 600 visitors a day, he argued, would be better for the applicant and for the town.

Board members pressed repeatedly on where the lagoon’s filter backwash ends up. Engineers said it is fully treated on site before infiltration and that solids are hauled away under contract. “The important thing is none of that’s just being discharged onto the ground,” one board member summarized. The applicants agreed to submit a written protocol.

Every five years, the team disclosed, the lagoon must be drained down — a process requiring a separate state permit, with daily discharge limits, routed through the site’s infiltration basins.

Six lifeguards, no shade

Board member Nancy Kefalis pushed on staffing, noting she had searched the plans for lifeguard stations and found only the control tower where an operator tunes the waves.

Piccolo said six lifeguards would be on duty around the lagoon at any time, standing at the water’s edge rather than in stations — the arrangement he observed at a comparable facility in Virginia Beach. Nancy was unconvinced.

“I was a lifeguard when I was younger,” she said. “You get tired, you get the heat on you. And then you lose focus.” The applicants agreed to consider awnings or seating for shade.

The perimeter fence drew similar scrutiny. NSP proposes a 48-inch observation fence, which Piccolo said reflects the standard for surf parks elsewhere in the country. Board members countered that Massachusetts requires six feet around commercial pools. The applicants promised to produce the surf-park-specific regulations. “That’s why we call it a lagoon as opposed to —” Piccolo began, before a member cut in that a change in terminology would not change the requirement.

Capacity was pegged at roughly 300 people including staff — about 60 in the water at a time, 60 more suiting up, and about 100 in the restaurant — the same figure used to justify 247 parking spaces, of which 33 would be land-banked but accounted for in the stormwater design.

Route 28, again

The traffic question surfaced from nearly every direction. Jason Adams of Bowman Consulting said a study has been completed and the driveway sited to maximize sight distance, but that MassDOT review and an access permit would come only after local approval.

The board pressed on seasonal weekend spikes on Route 28 and on cumulative growth from other pending projects. Adams said the analysis used a 1 percent annual background growth rate plus specific known developments, but acknowledged unknowns. “It’s kind of ever changing,” he said. “It’s a snapshot in time.”

The board also revisited the perennial question of an Interstate 495 connection. O’Shaughnessy said local legislators had already delivered an answer. “We tried that,” he said. “We were basically told no. Good luck.”

Residents were blunter. One neighbor said she already waits five to 10 minutes to exit her driveway onto Route 28, between trucks and Cape-bound weekend shortcuts, with Lex Court not yet occupied and the Freeman’s junkyard parcel still undetermined. “How is this little two-lane road going to do all that?”

The floor

Public comment split.

Richard Kessler, a trustee and abutting property owner on both sides of Fallbrook, spoke in favor. He called the project risky but said the family had every right to develop, and dismissed the nostalgia argument. “Nostalgia is nice,” he said, “but it doesn’t deal with reality.” If the venture fails, he added, a vinyl liner and machinery are recoverable.

Isabel Perry, who films the meetings for local access television, praised the presentation, then delivered a list of safety questions: evacuation protocols for 300 people, screening of personal belongings, whether overnight guests could access the water at 3 a.m., and whether restaurant patrons who had been drinking could get into the lagoon.

Piccolo said staff can decline any surfer they judge impaired, and that lifeguards are trained to pull people who are struggling — or who have overestimated their skill level. He drew a contrast with skiing, where “ski patrol may have to come and get you.” A surf park, he said, is “much more focused on safety all the way around.”

Donna Terry asked why Middleborough. Piccolo said the search covered about 10 South Coast towns against a demanding checklist: 20 acres, rail access, an hour from both Boston and Providence, and a water table at the right depth — “which is extremely hard to find.” The park would operate about 10 months a year, he said; the lagoon is neither heated nor covered, but with wetsuits, water below 50 degrees is workable for adults. New England’s best natural surfing, he noted, comes in fall and winter.

Anna Maria Fath was unpersuaded. “I’ve heard the spiel,” she told the board, saying she was not convinced that this is what the town needs and that she does not begrudge the family the right to develop but doubts the market. Serious surfers, she said, go to the ocean. She questioned who would teach, what it would cost in a soft economy, and whether anyone would carry a surfboard onto the MBTA. “I wish them well,” she said. “I hope they have plan B.”

A question no one had anticipated: what regulations govern the cleaning of rental wetsuits. The applicants promised to find out.

A bond, and a question of bonds

The night’s other discussion may prove the more consequential. Board member Elizabeth “Liz” Elgosin asked whether a decommissioning plan and bond — of the sort the town requires for solar arrays and towers — could be attached to a surf park.

Chairman Darren DeGrazia was skeptical, noting the town does not require a decommissioning bond “for every building we put up in town,” and that solar installations are treated differently because the equipment is useless after its lifespan.

“I’m putting it out because this is new technology,” Elgosin said. “Maybe this might be something to consider.”

Piccolo said the lagoon is a liner pool with perimeter walls and a sand-and-soda bottom, making demolition “relatively simple,” and the buildings reusable. He compared the industry’s trajectory to Topgolf a decade ago. The board asked for concrete volumes anyway.

Also before the board

Craig Gillis sought a special permit under Sections 9.4 and 7.75 to split a six-bedroom unit at 321 Wareham Street into two three-bedroom apartments, bringing the building to five units. A by-right accessory dwelling unit was previously approved there.

“As you can imagine, too big for a renter’s market,” Gillis said of the six-bedroom layout. He told the board the bedroom count — supported by an existing 18-bedroom, 5,000-gallon septic system — would not increase, and that a Health Department condemnation order tied to a former cesspool would be resolved by the new septic and full gut rehabilitation.

The board withheld approval pending a scaled plan showing parking spaces at 10 by 20 feet, a fenced dumpster enclosure, and parking pulled outside the 100-foot wetlands buffer. The plan will also go to the DPW director for review.

The parking discussion turned pointed. Members noted that 18 bedrooms could mean 18 drivers. Gillis committed to a minimum of two spaces per unit but resisted more. “I just don’t want to overcommit,” he said. One member recounted a two-bedroom apartment where all four occupants drove: “That’s four cars.”

“I tie all the permits to a plan,” the chairman told him. “So I have to have something that somebody can go back and say, you did the right thing, or you didn’t do the right thing.”

The board closed the meeting by voting unanimously to release the remaining $1,640.80, plus interest, in bond funds to Sachem Construction Inc. for the Sumner Avenue project.

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The Middleborough Zoning Board of Appeals meets next on Aug. 27 and Sept. 10. Meetings are recorded and available through MCCAM, the town’s government access channel.