Photography by Lauren Allen
In December 2022, the first neighborhood meeting was held to discuss the development of a skate park in Oak Cliff. The meeting had standing room only and was well attended by neighborhood skateboarders, skaters and bicyclists in favor of the park.
Dallas is considered a skate park desert. As a city of 1.2 million residents, there’s only one skatepark across the entire city. For context, San Antonio has 16, Houston has eight and even Fort Worth has four.
“We figured out that we had so many skaters in Oak Cliff, we couldn’t believe it,” says District 1 Parks and Recreation board member JR Huerta. “But then the skaters were talking about how they had to travel so far to go to a park and skate.”
Skateboarding has risen in popularity as legends like Tony Hawk brought attention to the sport, which originated in California in the 1950s as a way for surfers to recreate the feeling of riding waves on land when the ocean was flat. Skateboarding officially became an Olympic sport in 2020, making its debut at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
As skateboarding’s popularity grows in Dallas and more families move to the city, Dallas leaders are working to meet demands. District 1 council member Chad West headed the effort.
“Skateboarders across the city were very interested in bringing a skateboard park to some other place in the district, preferably Oak Cliff,” West says. “I approached city staff and they explained that there was a pot of money available to a skate park, and if there was a community interested in it, but to be fair and not to pick one community over the other. They asked for us to try to match it, or try to raise a certain amount of funds to unlock that money.”
The Oak Cliff park will be an addition to Westmoreland Park, designed for “all wheels,” meaning it will be a facility designed for skateboarders, bikers, roller skaters and scooter-ers to participate.
“We’re actually adding an addition to the park that’s been underserved for a long time,” Huerta says. “We’ll put infrastructure for the skate park, but we’re also planning to upgrade a lot of things that you see at the park at the same time.”
On March 27, skate park advocates announced a big jump in their $400,000 private fundraising goal, securing a $150,000 match pledge from the Eugene McDermott Foundation.
“Hitting that fundraising milestone was awesome,” West says. “It was a really significant moment. It’s hard to raise money for something of this nature, because, unlike a deck park, or some really significant downtown park where someone would put their name on it, this is in a location in a lower-income area in Oak Cliff, where probably a lot of our bigger donors have never even been to.”
In 2023, at the request of West, the City of Dallas Park and Recreation Department committed $400,000 in public funds designated for skate parks to match private donations $1 for $1 towards a new skate park.
By raising $400,000 in private funds, advocates secured $400,000 in matching public funds, totaling $800,000, that will be added to the $1 million in bond funding secured by West for the park in the 2024 Bond election.
West, along with neighbors and members of Skate Parks for Dallas, raised $165,000 between 2023 and March 2025 towards the $400,000 private raise goal. On March 27, 2025, park supporters gathered at Cibo Divino marketplace to announce the new $150,000 pledge from the Eugene McDermott Foundation, a pledge intended to help close out the fundraising gap by late summer 2025. The Foundation’s $150,000 donation will be released once advocates raise $85,000.
“We’re excited and we’re elated that so many people want to help in our southern area,” Huerta says. “Living in Oak Cliff for 30 years, it really makes me happy that we’re actually getting those dollars.”
Additional donations towards the final $85,000 fundraising gap include: $20,000 from Lindsey Billingsley, $10,000 from Mintwood Real Estate, $10,000 from Hudson Henley and Geoff Henley, and $20,000 from David Spence. The final tally of donations, including the foundation’s $150,000 pledge, totaled $375,000 of $400,000 leaving only $25,000 left for advocates to raise over the summer.
Notable donations prior to March 27, 2025 included a previous $25,000 from the Eugene McDermott Foundation, $25,000 from Monty and Sarah Bennett, and $15,000 from Mintwood Real Estate.
“Generally, most skateboarders are not fabulously wealthy individuals. And so it was harder to raise money for this than I think some other parks have experienced,” West says. “But we persevered and continued doing so for a long time. The skate parks for Dallas organizers were always available to bring skaters out to events and host demonstrations so that we could pitch the benefits of it to our donors. And that was also extremely helpful.”
West says skate parks provide an alternate activity for teenagers and an outlet to expend energy.
“As they get older and their skills develop, they can really make a sport out of it, and it has really grown in popularity through the Olympics,” West says. “We’re really excited about it.”
