Students, skaters and eager community members gathered in late February, for the grand opening of Castaic’s first ever skate park.
In 2015 a father and son advocated for a local skate park and community members rallied behind them. A year later it was approved by the county board of supervisors and planning began.
“Before now there has not been a place where skateboarders could enjoy their sport in a fun and safe environment,” explained Kathryn Barger, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
For many skaters this was a momentous occasion because until now they had to travel all the way to Canyon Country, almost 30 minutes away, just to be able to use a real skating facility.
Barger spearheaded this 10,000 square foot and 1.3 million dollar project emphasizing that, “it would not have been possible without the advocacy of the youth”.
“This is really cool and the reason it’s really cool is because we had kids helping us with the design,” said Norma Garcia, the Chief Deputy of Department of parks and recreation.
With the suggestions from the kids the designers were able to build this park with cool amenities such as lined stairs, ledges manual pads and grind pads that only skaters could come up with.
A big thing developers were worried about was getting the full 10,000 square feet to fit in the park without destroying all the trees in the original landscape, Garcia said.
“What our designers did was they weaved the skatepark in our trees, so that we wouldn’t lose our trees.”
After years of planning and tremendous dedication by the youth of Castaic, the skate park is officially open at the Castaic Sports Complex.
