You're part of a city government that is considering building a public skatepark for local skateboarders. Your motivation may stem from wanting to decrease damage to public and private property caused by skateboarders, wanting to please residents who are demanding a skatepark, you may feel the skatepark will revitalize or bring business to a certain area, or perhaps you just want your city to be more "cutting edge" and after all, every other city is doing it. Whatever the case, you probably want the skatepark to be used. After all, what's the point of spending $200-500K or more of city taxpayer money for something nobody will utilize? And yet tens, perhaps hundreds, of cities across the United States do just this every year.

Some cities make the mistake of hiring a general contractor with no experience in skatepark design or construction. Other cities make the mistake of hiring a contractor whose only experience is having built shoddy skateparks in the past. But even those firms that specialize in skatepark design and construction often build skateparks that are underutilized and do not accomplish the purpose(s) of the skatepark as intended by the city government funding the project. To this end, here are some tips for city governments considering building a public skatepark and how they can make it successful for all involved.

1. Involve those who will use it. Invite skateboarders to provide input on the design of the skatepark. This will not necessarily improve the design of the skatepark, but it will certainly make skateboarders feel more invested in it and therefore more likely to use it and take care of it.

2. Hire a skate park design firm that employs active skateboarders. A design firm that does not have skateboarders on the payroll almost certainly will fail to build a good skatepark.

3. Hire a construction firm that employs skateboarders. Skateboarders know the small details of skatepark construction that make a big difference, like how to finish the surface of the cement (smooth rather than rough, but not too smooth lest the surface become overly slippery).

4. Simple is often adequate, if not better. A skate park doesn't need to have huge bowls, curves, twists, and such to be successful. It might look neat to the non-skateboarder, and I'm not saying big bowls are a bad thing, but for cities on a limited budget there are much simpler, inexpensive things that can be built.

If your city has a problem with skateboarding on public and private property, take a look at what the skateboarders are skating on, and then duplicate it at the skatepark. Chances are they're skating on ledges, benches, handrails, and stairs. If you build a skatepark that does not include these obstacles then you haven't created an incentive for the skateboarders to stop skating the public and private property where they can find these things.

A successful skatepark can be as simple as a 100' x '25 square pad of concrete with 4' high 30-degree banked portions on either end, a 10' metal rail placed 1' high running lengthwise in the middle, and a 1' high, 2' wide, 10' long cement ledge with metal edges also placed lengthwise in the middle or along one of the sides. While not fancy, this kind of skatepark would be affordable and popular, if constructed properly, and a few simple additions would make it that much better.

5. Watch a skateboard video or two. I don't mean a feature film like The Skateboard Kid, which isn't an accurate portrayal of skateboarding or skateboarders, I mean watch one of the videos skateboarders watch. This is as easy as walking into your city's local skate shop and telling them "I'm with the city council, and we're considering building a public skatepark, and we want to know what the kids will want. Do you have any skateboarding videos you can recommend that will help us understand what skateboarders want to skate?"

6. Watch Groundbreaking, the Skate Plaza DVD. This video details the design and construction of the ultimate public skatepark. With a price tag over $1M, it is not for the small municipality, but for any major city, this type of project would not be outside a realistic budget, and due to how popular this type of park can be it could easily pay for itself in terms of the business it would bring to the city, county, and state. The first Skate Plaza, built in Dayton, Ohio, has drawn tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world, along with the dollars they spend on food, lodging, and tourism.

By watching the video you'll see the full range of street-like obstacles skateboarders are drawn to. A successful skatepark need not implement all these obstacles nor do them on such a grand scale. A city could build a skatepark one tenth the size and it would be highly successful.

7. Don't hesitate to ask for help. Local skateboarders, skateshops, skatepark design firms, other cities, random bloggers like me, and many other people would be more than glad to give you free advice to help your project be successful.