Downtown skate park makes big progress toward becoming reality

A high-quality skate park in downtown Sioux Falls – a decadeslong dream for skating enthusiasts – is on the precipice of reality.

The Sioux Falls Skatepark Association is approaching the $1.35 million goal that was set as part of the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce Community Appeal campaign. That effort wraps up at the end of the month.

Walter Portz, co-founder of the association, said the total raised is close to the goal and the group is waiting to hear from a few major donors who have pledged support but haven’t settled on a final number.

The Community Appeal money, combined with $800,000 in matching funds from the city of Sioux Falls, means the group will have at least $2.15 million to build the in-ground concrete playground for skateboarders. The city money is part of the COVID-19 relief funds from the federal government focused on infrastructure.

Portz said the group has had some initial conversations with the Sioux Falls Parks & Recreation Department’s design and engineering staff. That process should be finished in the summer or early fall. That will allow bids for construction to go out late this year to break ground next spring. If all goes as planned, the new skate park could open in August 2023, he said.

“I’m hoping for early August to get kids skating before school starts,” he said.

The park will be across the street from the Drake Springs Family Aquatic Center, near the bike trail. It’s a perfect location for kids to have a great day, staying active, at a very low cost, Portz said.

Portz is part of the generation that grew up with skateboarding as an outlet for energy and channel for lifelong friendships. Now, those skateboarders have kids, which has spawned a new generation of young people who see skating as a sport, an activity, where they can participate with like-minded kids.

Once relegated to renegade status in parking lots and stairwells, skating has grown into an international sport. Skate parks across the country are centers for kids who don’t participate in team activities – and even if they do – to gather, socialize and perfect their skills.

And it’s not just for kids.

Skateboarding pioneer Tony Hawk is still going at 53, though a recent broken femur has him sidelined. For now.

“You can do it forever,” Portz said. “You are not going to age out or not be good enough.”

It has been a long journey for Portz and his cohorts in the Sioux Falls Skatepark Association.

“On a personal level, to have shepherded this thing from start to finish is a pretty amazing feeling,” he said. “My goal, with almost everything I’m doing at this point of my life, is to make the world a better place for folks, whoever that might be.”

The support from the business community and the city at large has been overwhelming, he said. People were able to see the vision and the benefits from the beginning and pitched in whatever they could to make it happen.

“Our team, everybody involved, I’m so proud and thankful,” he said. “It’s going to be a big deal for a lot of kids for a long time to come.”

Effort to build skate park finds surprising allies: Young girls