Concord skaters have dropped in on their fundraising ride to build a new skatepark by the Everett Arena, presenting the city council with a $10,000 donation Monday night.
They still have a lot of ground to cover, however, to reach their $500,000 goal.
“In skateboarding, you fall, you get back up, fall, get back up,” said Arthur Anderson of the Concord Skatepark Association. “We’re not going anywhere, and as skateboarders we have the determination to get things done.”
Concord’s skate park was built in 1994, and is plagued by cracks, rotting plywood and other signs of its age. Design-wise, it’s also a flat area with elements styled mostly around half-pipe riding. The new design would blend a concrete bowl and street-scape elements like rails and stairs, incorporating a broader range of riding styles that were on display at the summer Olympics in 2020 and 2024.
After spending much of their lives skating at the park, and even helping clean and maintain it, local skaters banded together to push for an upgrade, forming a non-profit in 2022. They’d seen other parks in the state, like Keene, Dover and Portsmouth, get revamped as they worked to repaint over theirs.
A new skate park, in their eyes, would be a boon for Concord’s recreational offerings, especially those with appeal to young people.
“The skate park right now, it’s in such shambles,” said Alex Heath, a member of the skatepark association. “In every other city, the skate parks are just full every day to the max. We want to see Concord have the same opportunity.”
The skate park is connected to the Kiwanis Riverfront Park, hugging the Everett Arena, and the plan for a new skatepark is part of a broader city vision to upgrade that park and others along this part of the river. The City of Concord helped pay for the design, but the Concord Skatepark Association is driving the push for a new facility.
The first phase carries a $1 million price tag.
The city opted not to put any local tax dollars toward building the skate park, but did secure a $500,000 federal Land and Water Conservation Fund grant. To use that federal money, however, a matching half-million must be collected. If the sum isn’t put up by the deadline – five years after the early 2025 award, with a possible one-year extension, according to Parks and Recreation Director David Gill – the grant is lost.
On the horizon, the skatepark association is working with local businesses like Feathered Friend Brewing and skate shops around the state, like Coureur in Portsmouth, to put on fundraising events like concerts, skate markets and art shows. It also hosts an annual skate jam. Donations can also be made directly on the group’s website.
While it is common for the city to ask local groups to raise funds for recreation projects they support – like a new playground at White Park – many such projects still get the backing of city funds.
In the city budget passed in June, skate park supporters had pleaded with the council to consider chipping in city money towards matching the federal grant. They felt the skatepark project wasn’t getting the same city support as some other recreation facilities open to the public.
A new $6 million clubhouse at Beaver Meadow Golf Course will be funded by a taxpayer bond, six figures worth of recreational reserve dollars and $250,000 the Friends of the Beav pledged to raise in the next ten years. That’s twice the time and half the total the skatepark is tasked with raising, and the whole skate park project is at risk if they come up short. Other skateparks in the state, like one recently completed in Portsmouth, the association members noted, were built with public financing ($2.2 million of Portsmouth’s rainy day funds, according to the Portsmouth Herald).
While the skatepark association is pleased with what they’ve raised so far, and confident that they’re just getting up to speed, they know it will take persistence to get to the mark they need.
“It might not be the numbers everyone wants, but I think it’s enough to see that people are interested. You know, real people,” said Chris Harrington, the association’s main liaison with Parks and Rec. “Hopefully, it will be enough for the city council to see that the community does want it and that they should chip in.”
Heath added that the park serves not just skateboarders but bikers, rollerbladers and scooterers.
“The city needs it so bad,” he said. “We’re trying to help kids that live in the city, so to me, it’s an investment in the youth so that they have something fun and productive to do.”
Alexander Rapp contributed reporting.