Skateboard Park Grand Opening Set

The first of three skateboard mini-parks set to open this summer will be unveiled Friday during a grand opening ceremony.

Constructed at Westpark in the Avenue neighborhood, the 3,400-square-foot park--and two others being built in the east and midtown sections of the city--was built as a promise kept to local skaters, who in recent years have been booted from commercial parking lots and downtown streets over merchants’ safety concerns.

The circular, bowl-shaped parks are about 65 feet in diameter and 3 1/2 feet deep, with curbs and mounds to simulate skaters’ favorite spots on city streets and parking lots.

Westpark will be officially opened with speeches from city officials and parks commissioners and a skateboard demonstration by Skate Street of Ventura.

The two other parks, at Hobart Park and Pacific High School, are set to open later this summer and fall.

All three are being constructed by Driveway Specialists Inc. under a $120,000 city contract.

City officials said they were careful not to spend money building parks skaters would not use. The designs were drawn, in part, by skateboarders themselves under the direction of the late architect Ken Wormhoudt of Santa Cruz.

Wormhoudt, who in August died of pancreatic cancer, held a workshop where skateboarders molded their dream parks out of clay. He then incorporated those ideas into his final designs.

The City Council may consider spending the remainder of $350,000 set aside for skate park construction on other mini-parks, or possibly a larger, 9,000-square-foot facility, officials say.

Officials have discussed building the larger one at a recreational sports complex being planned in east Ventura.

Skaters unable to wait for the ceremonial opening have been unofficially skating at the Westpark site for days.

“Once the concrete and the fence went up, obviously it was impossible to keep people out of there,” said Beth Caputo of the city’s Public Works Department.