Board in College Park? Skate Park Coming Soon

Yes, College Park will have a skate park. The ink has long been dry on the City's design-build contract with Grindline – a Seattle-based skate park builder that has been working with the Sunnyside Skateboard Park Local Project Committee for a couple years now to come up with the final design for the City's first skate park.

The $250,000 that Prince George's County Councilman Thomas Dernoga fronted to fund the project, nearly four years ago, will still cover the entire project, said Elisa Vitale, senior planner.

It took a while to find the right location, and then, get permission from the Maryland National Park Planning Department to dig up the tennis court currently sitting on the space across from the playground at Sunnyside Park, on 10110 Rhode Island Ave., next to the Q State Police Barracks. But the project is rolling along.

"We're following a typical process for a design-build like this," said Vitale. "At this point we don't have a completion date. We need to finalize the [design] plan and then [get] building permits."

That puts the project at only 50 percent completion, Vitale said. Something eager College Park skaters aren't happy about. They'd hoped the park would be finished by now.

But skaters are pleased with the preliminary design. The committee has shared designs and encouraged input from skaters every step of the way.

"That was the intent from the start – that they play a very active lead in this," said Kennis Termini, an active member of the Sunnyside Skateboard Park Local Project Committee. "Why have a skate park that is not geared to the needs of the local skateboarders?"

It was Termini who recommended the Sunnyside park location.

"My reasoning was, it has a substantial amount of buffering with all the trees and it would have minimal noise impact. It's centrally located … it's going to be a wonderful addition to the community and for participants."

Termini's 18-year-old grandson, Jon West agrees; he's been skating since he was 12.

"I think it's a good idea," he said. "There's nothing around here, and you have to go out of the way. We'll have a place to skate."

University of Maryland student Kevin Green, 22, has been keeping pace with the project for two years now. He rides for the Velocity Skate Shop team, formerly a fixture in College Park business community before its owner moved the shop to Pasadena, Md.

Green, who's been skating for more than 10 years, skates everywhere – on city streets or in parks in D.C., Baltimore and Virginia. He is very excited about the designs he's seen so far, and is looking forward to having a place close by where he and all metro-area boarders can roll around and pop new tricks.

"It's half bowl, half street," Green explained. "Mt. Rainier is just stairs and ledges. [In Greenbelt] they built a huge bowl and then a crappy flow bowl on a hill. The College Park [skateboard park] has much better transition and flow. Kids will come to skate that bowl, no question."