The Skatepark Project is dedicated to providing resources tailored to each community's specific needs, from offering grants for public skatepark/skate spot development and support in the form of resource materials, guidance, and grant funding, to programming that activates those spaces. 

Our community-focused approach drives each program and each skatepark project. Our programs are fueled by local community members, skatepark users, municipalities, and social skate organizations. Whether we are helping to build a new park, refurbishing a historical skate spot, or delivering skate programming to youth, our work is designed by the community, for the community.

Please visit Our Programs for a comprehensive list of all of our community programs and grant opportunities.

The first step to getting a grant from The Skatepark Project is determining what type of grant you need. Please visit Our Programs to review all our current grants and programs offered at TSP and the corresponding application process.

A public skatepark is a purpose-built recreational facility, typically outdoors, designed for skateboarding, BMX, Wheelchair motocross, inline skating, rollerskating, and scootering, that is unsupervised while being owned and maintained by a city, municipality, or other governmental agency, and open to the public for free.

There are too many benefits of skateparks to list in one place. There are the physical, social, and mental health benefits of providing a facility for people, particularly at-risk youth, to pursue an accessible athletic activity that they love. There are public health benefits to having a safe place for young people to develop active lifestyles away from the risks of inactive and antisocial behavior.

To learn more about the benefits and impact of skateparks and skateboarding, please visit Our Impact and be sure to download our USC Study: Beyond the Board and other relevant resources on our Skatepark Development page.

The Skatepark Project can’t come to your town and build you a skatepark, but we can help you generate a volunteer-run public skatepark project that works with the city to get it done. We can provide guidance and possibly some funding along the way. As a local, you’ll be expected to prepare your town for the skatepark by organizing an advocacy group, promoting the need for a skatepark to fellow citizens, getting approvals from local leaders, and giving local skaters a voice in the process. 

We recommend you check out TSP’s robust offering of Skatepark Development resources. These advocacy tools have been helping communities navigate the skatepark development process for decades. You can also contact us directly. Visit Contact Us to ask for advice on getting started. We’d be happy to help you out.

There are multiple types of skate spaces.  While they all share a similar purpose, it’s important to know the differences and what may be right for your community or your group.

Neighborhood Skatepark
Neighborhood concrete skateparks are around 10,000 square feet, no less than 6,000 square feet. This is the size of the average public skatepark.

Regional Skatepark
The regional skatepark is often 30,000 sq. ft. or more and serves the city it’s in, plus the surrounding region.

DIY Skatepark / Community Build 
“Do It Yourself” skateparks have been around for a long time and embody the creative and persistent spirit of skateboarding. These parks are hand-built by locals, sometimes without permission, sometimes with permission from the city or property owner. Some turn into bona fide public skateparks and some are torn out unceremoniously. 

Skate Spot 
Skate Spots or Skate Dots (not to be confused with the common street skate spot) are smaller skate areas with only a few skateable elements. These can be peppered throughout a city’s interconnecting public access ways. Sometimes referred to as dots.

Legalized Skate Spot / Liberated Spot
These are street spots that have been liberated (made legal) through local advocacy and cooperation between the skate community and the city/property owner. Examples include the Brooklyn Banks in NYC, the Tacoma, WA ledges, the South Bank in London, England, and the West LA Courthouse in Los Angeles, CA.

Temporary Skatepark
Prefabricated or non-concrete skateparks can be a worthwhile consideration when utilizing an existing slab. Though constrained by limited design options, there can be instances where a prefabricated park is a valuable skate amenity for the community. They can be a cheaper alternative to concrete, but they will need ongoing maintenance and only last a few years. They are considered a temporary solution, so spending all of your budget on brand-new prefabricated skateparks is discouraged. Consider using an existing slab/lot with a few basic skatepark elements (possibly even safe DIY options) and working toward the permanent, custom, community-designed cast-in-place concrete skatepark.

In general, every town needs a skatepark. The true “Skatepark Need” of a community depends on the size of your community and what existing legal skate space already exists.

One way to find out what size skatepark you need or how many skateparks you need to serve your community is to use the Skatepark Adoption Model. The short form of this model equates to a community needing 10,000 sq. ft. of contemporary skatepark space for every 25,000 residents. However, it’s important to utilize the full SAM model if running a full skatepark advocacy project.

We recommend you check out TSP’s robust offering of Skatepark Development resources. These advocacy tools have been helping communities navigate the skatepark development process for decades. Many skatepark groups credit the Public Skatepark Development Guide as their single most important source of guidance and data.

You can also contact us directly. Visit Contact Us to ask for advice on getting started. We’d be happy to help you out.

Public skatepark projects are always the result of a dedicated team of locals and city officials working together to achieve the goal. Read on from your particular perspective:

As a local: (A Skater, Parent, Teacher, Local Resident)

Nearly all public skatepark projects start with a local resident who takes it upon themselves to work toward creating more skate space in town. This usually results in them creating and managing a public skatepark project. Almost always a self-elected volunteer position, many “skatepark advocates” start with little knowledge or experience of public projects. They learn along the way, often using resources and guidance available through The Skatepark Project and advice they get from their allies in the local government.  

The focus of The Skatepark Project is to help individuals like yourself follow best practices for establishing and completing a successful skatepark project. 

You can get free guidance and technical assistance from our staff.  If you have questions, need help with an existing project, or have decided to start a new skatepark project, you can connect with us by using the contact button above.

For a municipal employee or parks professional:

Every public skatepark is the result of dedicated civil servants engaging with locals and understanding the needs of the community. 

Often, this means taking steps to make the project a priority and putting resources behind it. Some start the project themselves, and some learn about the need and choose to act. Wherever someone starts, the Skatepark Project is here to assist municipal employees in their efforts to generate, complete, or support local public skatepark projects. 

Our Programs team is ready to offer free, unbiased skatepark project development guidance, technical assistance, and grant funding. We’ve been involved with thousands of projects over the last 20 years and intend to help you complete a public skatepark project efficiently and up to contemporary standards.

First Step Resources: To start, head to our Skatepark Development page to learn as much you can from the Skatepark Best Practices Guide and Public Skatepark Development Guide.

Watch this video: How To Get a Skatepark!

Reach out directly: Head to Contact Us and ask for some advice on next steps. We’d be happy to help you out.

If you are pursuing a single skatepark and have no intention to engage in fundraising after the park is open (skate programming or expansions, for example), then there is little reason to launch an independent nonprofit organization. Instead, establish a partnership with another local nonprofit that can provide nonprofit status to your effort. You will essentially be fundraising on behalf of this organization, and it will be acting as your group’s “fiscal sponsor” (or “fiscal agent”). This is a common practice in skatepark projects. Please visit this page for more information.

Hire a specialty skatepark contractor who has built at least a few quality skateparks, particularly if the skatepark design includes complex transitions and other unique features—these types of skateparks should always be built by firms specializing in skatepark construction.

The single most important thing you can do is help everyone, including city staff and elected officials, understand the importance of hiring a qualified, experienced skatepark designer/builder. It is common to have general contractors hire experienced skatepark specialty subcontractors to do the skatepark work if there are other separate site improvements involved in the larger project. But the skatepark work should always be done by an experienced skatepark builder.

Modern skatepark design should include all types of riders at all skill levels and green infrastructure. The local skatepark advocates will work with the skatepark designer through a series of public feedback sessions to ensure that their community’s specific requests and needs are met where possible. The specialty skatepark design firm will then use its experience to shape a contemporary design given the parameters, ultimately creating a safe, inclusive, engaging, and accessible space for all locals to enjoy for decades. Learn more about skatepark design in the Skatepark Best Practices Guide which can be found on our Skatepark Development page. 

If you’re serious about your skatepark project, take five minutes to learn about ensuring quality in design and construction.

The best way to understand this on a local level is to call the nearest city in your state with a contemporary unsupervised skatepark and ask the City Manager about the specific state code that absolves cities in your state from liability. You can then consider connecting them to the person you’re working with in your city to see if they can go over any additional questions.

To learn more, please visit the skatepark liability page in our PSDG.

Check out The Skatepark Project’s mobile app in the Apple App Store. It’s one of the most robust collections of skatepark information available, and it’s updated daily. Join thousands of users working together to catalog and clarify information about public skateparks, retail skateparks, and skate shops.