Teenagers stand with their skateboards at a Nov. 29 neighborhood meeting to show support for the construction of a skate park in Oak Cliff. Photo by Emma Ruby
Dallas is a skate park desert, but plans for a new park in Oak Cliff aim to combat that.
Last month, the first of two neighborhood meetings was held to discuss the development of a skate park in Oak Cliff. The meeting was standing room only, and was well attended by neighborhood skateboarders, bikers and skaters in favor of the park.
The second community meeting will be held tonight at 6:00 p.m., and it is virtual. The zoom link for the meeting is here.
Here is everything you should know going into the meeting:
Plans for a skate park in Oak Cliff are still in preliminary stages, Â but according to a presentation given by Megan O’Neal, a parks planning manager for the city, it would be the first step in Dallas catching up to the skate park infrastructure many other cities already have.
Currently, Dallas has one skate park located at Lakeland Hills Park in East Dallas, and one skate park under design at Bachman Lake Park. The skate park at Bachman Lake is expected to begin construction next year.
According to the presentation given during the Nov. 29 community meeting, one completed park puts Dallas behind other major cities.
To compare, San Antonio has 16 skate parks, Houston has eight, Fort Worth has four and Austin has three.
But according to O’Neal, the demand for skate parks in Dallas has only recently reached a level that necessitates a park.
“I don’t know that we’ve ever had such advocates for a park,” O’Neal says.
According to Clinton Haley of Skate Parks for Dallas, the pandemic skyrocketed the popularity of wheeled sports. While he has been advocating for skate parks in Dallas since his organization began in 2017, he says the past few years he has seen an increase in support for the growing demand.
As the parks department has begun working to fill that demand, the call for a park in Oak Cliff has been lead by community members and politicians alike.
The Nov. 29 community meeting was lead by JR Huerta, the District 1 representative for the Parks and Recreation board. In the meeting, Huerta said that parks are an equalizer for community members, and he hopes a skate park in Oak Cliff would shine a light on the community.
“We see things always getting built in North Dallas, so I want to get ahead of this for us,” Huerta said in the meeting.
In the first community meeting, planners and parks officials encouraged community members to think “big picture” about the park, focusing in on design features they hope to see and utilize in the park.
The meeting emphasized that the Oak Cliff park will be designed for “all wheels,” meaning it will be a facility designed for skateboarders, bikers, roller skaters, scooter-ers and any other wheeled vehicle to participate.
An online survey was given to community members asking about interest in specific design features, and at the end of the Nov. 29 meeting, wheels users were encouraged to create their own parks using paper design elements and tools provided by the skate park planning team in order to gauge interest in certain elements.
Haley says one thing that he thinks has driven the wave of support for the parks is that the sport has evolved into something the whole family can participate in, as opposed to traditional team sports where parents watch from the sidelines.
“I think that with skateboarders that skated in the ’80s coming of age to be parents and having kids of the age that they can skateboard, the sport has evolved into a family sport,” Haley says. “It’s something that you can go to the skate park with your son or daughter, and skate the same park.”
Funding the Park
In the meeting, the parks department stated they were looking to build a 12,000 square foot park. At 12,000 square feet, the Oak Cliff park would be considered a small skate park. The Lakeland Hills park is 10,000 square feet, and plans for the Bachman Park put it at 40,000 square feet.
A 12,000 square foot skate park would likely cost anywhere from $750,000 to $1 million.
According to city of Dallas project manager Jared White, the parks department is looking to get design plans for the Oak Cliff skate park ready in advance of the next bond program, which will be on the 2024 ballot.
However, some community members are working to help Oak Cliff see a skate park well before that funding would come through.
While a location for the park has not yet been selected, Dallas City Council member Chad West has assisted with laying out plans for a two-phase skate park, so that the neighborhood does not have to wait until after the 2024 bond to see progress.
According to West, the city has committed to matching up to $400,000 in privately raised funds in 2023 to pay for the first phase of the skate park.
This week, West launched a fundraiser for his birthday alongside Color Me Empowered, a local non-profit which has committed to assisting with aesthetic and artistic elements for the skate park. West says he will match up to $2,000 donated for his birthday fundraiser, which will then be matched again by the city funding.
Other donors, including Haley, joined in on the fundraiser as well. So far, it has raised $2,255 of a possible $3,500.
Haley’s organization has launched their own fundraiser as well, which has raised $585.
One attendee of the Nov. 29 meeting was 11-year-old Kristopher Lopez. Lopez, who lives in Oak Cliff, brought his skateboard to the meeting as an act of support for the park.
Lopez says he began skating during the pandemic, but at only 11-years-old, it is difficult for him to find places to skate because of distance.
“It’s a hustle to get over there to the far away skate parks, and most of the time I can’t go,” Lopez says. “I really would like to just be able to walk to one every day.”
During the meeting, Lopez and his friends said they would be willing to donate their allowances to help pay for the park.
Haley speculates that a location for the park will be selected within the next several months, as funding for the first phase is finalized.
