Greenwood’s dated skate park to get facelift this summer

Greenwood’s 25-year-old skate park is getting a makeover.

Northeast Skate Park, which was built sometime in the mid-1990’s, is set to be renovated by the end of the summer. It is time for an upgrade, said Rob Taggart, the city’s parks director. The equipment is out of date and rundown.

"The way people skate has changed through the years. We have a really strong skating community on the southside, and it’s just an amenity we’d like to improve," Taggart said. 

The project is estimated to cost about $250,000, some of which will be covered by a community grant. 

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The Greenwood Parks and Recreation Board is set to review the project at its Wednesday meeting.

The city sought community input, asking for design ideas and holding public meetings where the community could share those ideas. 

"There’s already a skate park there, so we haven’t really had any push back about it," he said. "We’re pretty excited about it."

Some key changes to the skate park include using concrete instead of asphalt, and installing several new, bigger ramps contoured into the concrete, along with stairs and railings for users to skate and perform tricks.

It is a different look than the current design of the park, which is primarily equipment mounted onto asphalt surfaces rather than built into the ground like in more modern skate parks, Taggart said. 

"We’d like to think we came up with a pretty good concept," he said.

The new design is made for both beginners and experienced skaters, Taggart said.

"The skate-ability far exceeds what we had before," he said. "We intentionally designed it so a beginner will be able to learn … and at the same time, an advanced skater would be able to find challenges out of it."