Photo courtesy of Metro Creative Connection.
Westmoreland Park is the proposed future home of Dallas’s newest skateboard park, District 1 City Council member Chad West announced Thursday.
The park was selected due to its proximity to a DART train station, bus stops and the five mile creek trail, as well as the space available. In a press release, Jared White, a parks department planning manager, described the park as being underserved and having the necessary space for the skate park.
Westmoreland park has not been updated since 2012, according to city staff.
“This park, which is surrounded by homes with hundreds of families, has been long neglected, and it is time the City invests in it,” JR Huerta, Park Board representative for District 1, said in the press release.
While Westmoreland park has been proposed as the location for the skateboarding park, nothing will be finalized until there is further community input on the location, as well as feedback from DISD due to the locations proximity to Lenore Kirk Hall Elementary School.
In a November 2022 community meeting, park accessibility was a major consideration voiced by community members.
11-year-old Kristopher Lopez told the Advocate that he found it difficult to find places to skate due to distance. Dallas’s only functioning skate park is at Lakeland Hills park, and many members of the Dallas skating community have historically travelled to neighboring cities such as Arlington, Grapevine and Plano to find a park.
“It’s a hustle to get over there to the far away skate parks, and most of the time I can’t go,” Lopez said. “I really would like to just be able to walk to one every day.”
In addition to geographic accessibility, the park is also planned to be an “all wheels” park, meaning it will have features for bikes, scooters, skateboards and roller skates.
West says community feedback from meetings and online surveys showed that community members hope to see a skatepark ranging from 8,000 to 12,000 square feet.
Park officials said that a 12,000 square foot skate park would likely cost anywhere from $750,000 to $1 million.
In the November meeting, White said the parks department hopes to partially fund the park through the 2024 bond program, although West says there may already be city and private funds available.
West himself launched a fundraiser for the park, in which he matched donations. Clinton Haley, an advocate through the organization Skateparks for Dallas, also matched funds. The fundraiser raised nearly $6,000 after matching.
