Skimming the surface: the skatepark industry has been grinding for 40 years, and has finally found its footing

Parks & Recreation, March, 2004 by Maya Avrasin

Consulting with skateboarders tins been a growing and welcomed trend among some of the more recent skateparks. Onondaga County Parks Commissioner Bob Geraci opened a 17,000-square-foot skatepark last November with the help of skateboarders from the community who worked with the designer. Onondaga County is closest to Syracuse in New York and has a population of 450,000.

When Geraci's department decided it was time to roll with the skatepark craze, he began his research in 1999 by going out West where skateparks are as common as ball fields.

"The Northeast is just trying to understand that kids want skateparks," Geraci says. "And we knew we wanted to build something that would last forever."

After two years of research and a year-long fund-raising campaign that garnered the $400,000 necessary to build the park, Geraci began holding informative sessions between his designer and the community. There were three major sessions with the skateboarders in 2001 before the skatepark was built. Skaters ranging in age from 8 to adult sat with designers who drew their visions for the park.

But even the East Coast might be a few steps ahead of Middle America when it comes to skateparks. Jim O'Loughlin, co-owner of Ohio-based skatepark designer Suburban Rails, says the Midwest is still trying to catch up to both coasts when it comes to skateparks.

"The cities don't talk to the skaters and ask them what they want," says O'Loughlin, who has skated for more than 25 years. "These kids know what's good and what's [not]."

America's New Pastime?

Even with the mistakes local communities make when building skateparks, they are still used. And as more and more parks and recreation departments begin building skateparks, there is more widely available information available--from the thousands of Web pages devoted to the subject to skatepark seminars hosted by the National Recreation and Park Association.

And with all of this activity, the skatepark industry is beginning to become more organized and proactive. In 2000, the International Association of Skateboard Companies (IASC) had a meeting and created the International Committee of Skateparks and Builders (ICSB). According to IASC founder Jim Fitzpatrick, who was present at the meeting, his group plans on establishing guidelines to help parks and recreation agencies build public skate parks. Their goals also include a national certification course for skatepark builders and designers.

While there is no one organization that monitors skateparks in the United States, SPAUSA founder Heidi Lemmort has said that there are 1,000 finished parks and 2,000 in the planning stages. SPAUSA also keeps track of situations that can happen while building skateparks. According to its Web site, www.spausa.org:

"1) The city of Barnstable, Mass. (near Hyannis Port)just built two concrete bowls, valued at over $100,000 that are unskateable. After completing the whole process they contracted the job to an inexperienced crew, who "brushed" the finish of the bowls. [Occurs when concrete is smoothed using a wooden instead of a steel trowel.] At this point it does not look like anything can he done to correct it.