LOCKPORT, N.Y. — The Railyard Skatepark in Lockport has been a labor of love. After falling into disrepair, it reopens on Saturday after years of fundraising and planning.
2 On Your Side got a sneak peek at the new park on Friday.
"Kids were skating downtown in parking ramps and in parking lots. The school district kind of outlawed skateboarding and kids needed a place to go," said Dr. John Craig from Lockport Community Services.
Since before forming an official Skatepark Committee in 2019, families in Lockport have looked forward to the day when holes no longer made skating here dangerous.
"We had a wooden apparatus here that I was a part of and that was almost twenty years ago. We found an old skatepark up in Tonawanda, I believe it was, we brought the apparatus here and the kids, the youth, loved it," City of Lockport Mayor John Lombardi said.
The new and improved Railyard Skatepark at Lockport's Outwater Memorial Park opens this weekend, although it won't be totally finished until June.
"It's so smooth. We designed it with the purpose in mind to be unlike any other skatepark in Western New York. It's got a nice flow from each feature so you can really enjoy yourself," said Rich Hoose from Friends of the Railyard Skatepark.
"Kids are looking for different features to skate, different types of ledges and transitions in the stairs, we have even different types of coping, you know, we have concrete coping versus steel coping. It's just a different experience when you're skating on it or grinding your board, doing a rail slide on it. Just different obstacles essentially."
In all, the park came with a $550,000 price tag. The Skatepark Project and the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation provided $300,000 on top of $250,000 raised by the community.
"The dream was always to have a state-of-the-art all concrete and the costs were just too inhibitive to raise that kind of money, but in 2018, we found out that the Tony Hawk Foundation and the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation were getting together, and the Built to Play Initiative, to build twenty concrete skateparks in Western New York and Eastern Michigan, and we happen to write a grant for Lockport to be considered," Dr. Craig said.
Lombardi added: "It's amazing just to be able to stand here and see what I know what we had as to what we have now. It's a great accomplishment by so many people."
The park will also hold special events with bands and be a place for mentoring people just discovering skateboarding.
"I mean, this is something, when I was growing up in Lockport, skateboarding was illegal here, so this is a very, very good accomplishment, you know, now we have a place for kids to come and for kids to learn how to skateboard, and just, you know, adults, people my age are still coming here and doing this, so this is, actually, it's a beautiful thing," said Joe Villella from Friends of the Railyard Skatepark.
The ribbon cutting ceremony is Saturday at 12 p.m.
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