HAMBURG, N.Y. — A Southtowns community is another step closer to opening a long-awaited 8,000-square-foot skatepark.
A ceremonial groundbreaking was held Sunday morning for the Hamburg Skatepark Project on Electric Avenue. The new park will provide a safe place for people to skate away from cars and busy roads.
Community organizers have been fundraising for years to replace an old, rundown park.
"My son got a skateboard for his birthday, and we tried to take him some places, and there wasn't really a safe place to ride, so he kind of packed it up and put it in his closet, and we thought that was the end of it," Timothy Carrig, a resident who is behind the project, told 2 On Your Side.
"Then I heard about some skateparks out in the Northtowns, so we actually went up there, and he fell in love with it, and we just decided that Hamburg needed to have something too."
The Town of Hamburg has committed $125,000 in American Rescue Plan Act, an the project itself will cost $690,000. More funding came from the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, which works with the Skatepark Project (formerly the Tony Hawk Foundation).
Construction is expected to finish in the fall.