Following years of resident and student demand, the City of College Park has finally gained enough funding to construct the first skateboarding facility in the city.

The skate park, to be built in Sunnyside Neighborhood Park in North College Park, has been on the county’s agenda for more than a year. Because of a $250,000 grant from Prince George’s County, the city will finally be able to put plans for the park in motion, leaving university students excited about the prospect of a nearby facility.

“I heard whispers of a College Park skate park last year,” said Christina Coleman, a senior music major who has been skateboarding since her freshman year. “It would be amazing if that came to be.”

The decision to build the skate park was based on growing demand within the community, said Elisa Vitale, a College Park city planner.

The park will be made possible by a land grant through the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Officials said the city still has several steps to take before they can break ground on the park.

“Once the staff irons it out, we’ll give it to the city council and they will give it to the M-NCPPC,” said Sarah Imhulse, the assistant to the city manager.

The recent “knobbing” – metal brackets that prohibit skating – of concrete walls, benches and railings on the campus is a factor in students’ growing desire for a nearby skate park.

“They have taken plenty [of] measures to prevent skateboarding on campus,” sophomore finance and physics major Mike Mann said. “Specifically, you can look at the benches and planters in front of the new engineering building. They have all been ‘knobbed’ to stop us from grinding them.”

“We put them where we know the surfaces have historically been a skateboarding area or will be,” said Jack Baker, director of operations and maintenance. “We’re concerned about skateboarder safety, potential for accidents and also damage to university property,” he added.

These knobs and brackets have also been installed around the Kim Engineering building and the concrete wall that lines the walkway near the sundial.

“It would be great to have somewhere close to campus to skate since they’re capping everything [on the campus],” said Karrie Jefferson, a senior criminology and criminal justice major.

Although pleasantly surprised, students hope the new park will offer more variety than others nearby, like the one in Greenbelt.

“Greenbelt was built by one of the best skate-park builders in the country, Wally Hollyday, but the design is terrible,” said Mann, who has been skateboarding since seventh grade.

Mann, along with other students, complained that the park has too many vert components, like half-pipes and bowls, and not enough street elements like railings, steps, curbs and ledges.

“It’s so bad that I make the hour-and-a-half trip down to Arlington, Olney or Frederick; much better parks,” he said, “rather than drive five minutes down the street to Greenbelt.”

“It would be sad to see them put all that money to waste like they did at Greenbelt,” Mann said, and added that he’s really eager to get involved in the planning of the park.

With plans for a new skate park in motion, students said they hope they will be able to have a say in what goes into the park.

The city will definitely take residents’ ideas into consideration for construction of the park, Vitale said. “We have actually talked about getting together a group of kids to give an idea of what they would like in the park.”

“We’re not waiting for money, so that’s good,” Imhulse added. “I would hope that the memorandum of understanding process will be completed by the spring so we can move forward.”

Imhulse added that the process usually takes about two months.

okparantadbk@gmail.com