Attention Skaters: Your Park Has Arrived

Woodridge has facilities for basketball, volleyball, soccer, and in-line hockey. Now the village will have a place for skaters, skateboarders and bikers to show off their stuff, too.

Woodridge will dedicate its new skate park on Thursday, Sept. 16, at 7 p.m. at Janes Avenue Park next to the in-line hockey rink.

The park's opening is exciting news for skaters like Collin Gum, 13, of Downers Grove.

"We get yelled at and told to move away from streets," Gum said. "We obey. But we want there to be a place to skate and not have to worry to get yelled at."

He frequents skating parks in Bolingbrook, Glen Ellyn, Westmont and Schaumburg. But his dream has been to skate near his home in Woodridge.

"There's not so much around here and that's why I wanted it to be built," Gum said. "I wrote essays about having a skate park in Woodridge in school."

Some skaters were already using the in-line hockey rink to skate—and getting in trouble, said Cade Nelson, 11, of Woodridge. 

Gum and Nelson were part of a 14-person skate park planning committee for the new park. The committee personally selected what features the skate park would have and participated in an interactive webinar to come up with the design.

"My biggest thing was to just to have an empty out pool," Gum said. "You can just go up and down ramps and do tricks."

Now, their dreams have come to fruition.

Mike Adams, executive director of the Woodridge Park District, said the addition of a skate park is part of Woodridge's five-year master plan.

"We've received the request over the years to build one," Adams said. "We were finally able to budget for that."

Woodridge received a grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources that will cover half of the $475,000 project.

Location, location, location

Park district officials from Darien and Westmont say location is key for the success and safety of the skate park. Among nearby communities, Westmont, Downers Grove, Hinsdale and Naperville already have skate parks.

But Darien officials decided last November to close its skate park because of vandalism and rules violations. Equipment was sold and taken out of the location this past spring. Stephanie Gurgone, executive director of the Darien Park District, said there had been vandalism over the years, but the acts intensified from 2008 to 2009.

"There was a little bit of everything," Gurgone said. "Kids were disassembling the equipment. …We did not allow bikes in and they were bringing bikes in. They were using  (the park) after the park was closed and climbing over the fence."

Gurgone said the skate park's location was a problem. The park was in a detention basin next to the Darien Sportsplex, and that made it difficult for anyone to monitor activity within the skate park.

Bob Fleck, superintendent of parks and planning at the Westmont Park District, said Westmont has not experienced the same issues with its skate park. He said the park, located in Bellerive Park on 63^rd Street, is one of the most visible locations in Westmont and can be easily observed from the street by staff and Westmont police.

Westmont previously charged for entrance to the park — $2 for residents and $4 for non-residents. The park also was supervised. However, this year Westmont did away with both the admission charge and the supervision, and there haven't been major problems, Fleck said.

"We are not free of problems, but they're minimal and no different from problems we have at other parks," he said.

Fleck said it was important to give skaters the same opportunities to practice as basketball players.

"It's a popular recreational activity that is desired," Fleck said. "The youth population deserves an opportunity to enjoy their activity in a controlled environment just like a basketball player can go to a court and play."

Why Woodridge chose Janes Avenue Park

Adams said Woodridge took the location of the skate park seriously.

"Skateboard parks are difficult to locate," Adams said. "You can't put it in a neighborhood park because there are homes and people don't want to hear the noise. But you want it to be close enough so that the kids can skate to the park."

He said the Janes Avenue Park location meets both of those goals, providing some distance from the park to local residential areas but still being accessible to skaters. There's also a lot of activity at Janes Avenue Park, and surveillance is not a problem.

"We have good surveillance in that park site," Adams said. "It's near a major arterial street so there's good vision into the park site. We have security cameras up in that area and there's a lot of activity around there. It just seemed to be a natural site."

Adams already has talked to the youngsters on the planning committee about taking care of their skate park.

"We've talked to these kids. We know who they are and we have a good relationship with them," he said. "We told them from Day 1 that it's their park and they need to care of it."

Gum is just excited to skate close to home.

"I think it will be a lot of fun--not having to travel to go skate and not getting yelled at," he said. "I think it's going to be great times."