Everett Tetz waxed poetic about the new Woodlands Skatepark’s integrated urban street elements and textures at the park's grand re-opening on Wednesday, Aug. 11.
“This is one of our flagship projects for the year, here in Canada. We're super proud of what this park means to the community, but also how it took a sort of a legendary skatepark and skate spot and reinvigorated it with new energy and modern design elements," said the representative from New Line Skateparks, the company that overhauled the park.
The new version of the skatepark features handrails, integrated stairs, and small curbs painted just like parking curbs.
"As you can see today, it's pretty awesome to see it in use,” said Tetz.
The city celebrated the grand re-opening with an all-day event featuring demos, lessons, giveaways, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Around 100 people showed up for the event.
While in line to ride the bowl, Kevin Yue said he grew up skating at the old skate park, which was built in 1997, and is one of the oldest skateparks in Alberta. He said it was nice the city could breathe new life into the popular spot for skateboarders of all ages.
“It's really awesome for the next generation to have something like [this] where they can really build a community and find something they’re really passionate about,” said Yue.
Doug McLeod, at 57 years young, said he got back into skateboarding after a 35-year hiatus when his children, Akari and Brody, got into it. They live close to the park and have been coming almost every morning to practice.
“I think it's got something for everybody here — for beginners and then some of the guys that ride the bowl, it’s fun to watch them,” he said.
Malachi Chapman came from Edmonton for the re-opening. He said he has been waiting a long time for someone to build something like this.
“It’s really nice they’re building bowls now because a lot of the skateparks don’t have this pool-style bowl,” Chapman said.
The bowl is an integrated pool, reminiscent of the old days of California skateboarding, explained Tetz. The tiles whoosh when wheels roll across.
“Everybody loves [the pool], and people will flock from across the province to skate [it],” said Tetz.
David Howes, from Friends of the Skatepark Committee, said there was a lot of back and forth over Zoom on design decisions with New Line.
“Scooters and BMX and skateboarders all have different opinions on it. They all want something different. Some guys want the bowl, and some guys want the stairs and rails,” said Howes.
Overall, Howes said he is quite happy with the design. He was also happy about how many people showed up for the re-opening event.
“I wasn't expecting people at this early in the day … This is awesome,” Howes said.
Diane Enger, the city's director of parks and recreation, said she was also happy with the turnout.
“The city is really excited to be able to redevelop this park to a state-of-the-art, new facility that, as you can see, is attracting a huge diversity of users. All kinds of wheels are out here, all kinds of people are out here. It's an exciting place,” said Enger.
Enger said the entire construction process — from April of 2020 to March of 2021 — ran smoothly from start to finish.
Donna Himchey, the city's community recreation supervisor, said they were fortunate with COVID-19 timing.
“We actually didn't have to shut down the park because nobody could come out and skate anyway. So that timing worked out really well,” said Himchey.
Tetz said they face unique challenges with every park they build. This park was unique in that they weren’t starting from scratch.
“We had to adjust to some of the existing topography to integrate our design, which can be an advantage and a disadvantage, as it does present, you know, certain challenges,” Tetz said.
New Line added some environmental features to the skatepark, something Tetz said is the biggest movement in skateparks right now.
For Woodlands, they used natural fibres to mix in with the concrete instead of synthetic fibres, and green-water infrastructure.
“Rain gardens help capture the [rain] water [and direct it toward catchment areas and then] treat it as it flows off the park,” Tetz said as he pointed to one of the gardens. “The whole skatepark is graded to flow into these catchment areas. And we try to do that in a way that is ensuring no contamination is happening.”
However, Tetz said the biggest impact has yet to be seen on the community.
“Now you have an open, highly-accessible space that kids can come to with no registration fee. It's a low startup cost; it's accessible to everybody.
“I would love to see, in the future, the city take advantage of that and create some programming or some mentoring opportunities for young adults to have a positive impact on their community so that impact lasts much longer than, you know, the facility itself.”
