CHARLOTTE — Months after a hand-built skate park at the old Eastland Mall site was torn down, skaters in Charlotte will soon have a new skate spot that won’t run a risk of being demolished.
The Charlotte Skate Foundation posted on Friday that an agreement with the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department has been reached to build a new DIY skate park, and it’s going to be located fairly close to the original Eastland Mall site.
The foundation says a skate park will be built on the tennis courts at Kilborne Park, which is just north of Central Avenue and east of Eastway Drive. Charlotte Skate Foundation says Parks and Rec is “preparing to lease the site to CSF for $1 per year,” according to a fundraiser that was posted on Friday. The group is trying to raise $20,000 to help build the ramps, boxes, and rails that will be placed on the park.
The agreement comes after months of back-and-forth in a city with few legal options to skate on ramps. Skaters had built their own skate park at the former site of the Eastland Mall off Central Avenue, but that was torn down when the site was slated for redevelopment. The skaters then moved and tried to build two other DIY parks, one near Matheson Avenue and another at the former Double Oaks School. Both of those were removed to make way for new developments.
There are three official skate parks in the area, but only two of those are free to use, and they’re on the south and west sides of the Charlotte metroplex, miles away from the original Eastland DIY site.
CSF says they’ll be able to begin building and skating at the park “no later than July 1, 2023.”
Channel 9 reached out to the county’s parks and recreation department for more information about the terms of the deal.
On Monday, the county issued the following statement: “Following the announcement of the Eastland Yards development on the former mall site, Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation staff worked along with staff from the City of Charlotte to identify potential sites for a future DIY skate park. At the same time, Charlotte skaters formed a non-profit, the Charlotte Skate Foundation, in an effort to secure a new home for the public skate park. Park and Recreation does not yet have a finalized agreement with the Charlotte Skate Foundation, but hope to have more information to share in the next few weeks.”
(WATCH: ‘It’s so sad’: City of Charlotte to close Eastland skate park March 3)
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