Sioux Falls Skatepark Association names executive director as it expands mission, vision

The Sioux Falls Skatepark Association started in 2017 as a ragtag group of former skaters looking to raise $500,000 to build a skate park in town.

Since then, the organization tripled its goal, raising more than $1.7 million for a new skate park near downtown Sioux Falls and expanding its vision for the skating community.

The first step to achieving its new vision was to hire Walter Portz as the full-time executive director.

Walter Portz, center, with Josh and Justin Pierce

Portz moved to Sioux Falls with his family as a 12-year-old, finding skateboarding as a means of relationship- and community-building at a volatile stage in life.

While the now 46-year-old husband, father and , a small-business owner has donated countless volunteer hours to the association since 2017, this new position will allow him to dedicate his full attention to the organization and how it can grow the skateboarding community locally and nationally.

He has seen, through his own history and building the association here, the impact skateboarding can have on individuals and the community.

“When I moved here, I was lost,” Portz recalled. “I don’t know if I found skateboarding or if skateboarding found me. It was a window into community, music and art. It allowed me subsequently to get into photography and find my creative passion, which became my profession for almost 20 years. I am sure that skateboarding saved my life many times during those teenage years.”

The association is finalizing plans and details for the new skate park at Nelson Park near 10th Street and Cliff Avenue across from Drake Springs Family Aquatic Center. The plan is to bid out the project late this year, begin construction in spring and be completed by September 2023.

Portz hopes to continue nurturing the Sioux Falls skateboarding scene, especially after the success of Innoskate this summer.

Thousands of people turned out for the multiday event, which included skate clinics, demonstrations from pro skaters and panel discussions. Portz believes the event helped spread interest in the sport among children and teenagers, adding that Spoke-n-Sport sold out of its skateboard inventory at the event.

In the coming years, the association hopes to add smaller skateboard parks across the city and contribute to the reemergence of skateboarding in communities in the nation. Portz said people in cities such as Fargo; Lawrence, Kansas; and Sarasota, Florida; have asked how to establish efforts like the association did in Sioux Falls.

“One of the things I recognized awhile ago is that we’re reinventing the wheel,” Portz said. “Instead of letting all (everything we learned over these past five years) get lost to time, why not find other ways to expand to other communities and save them years of work by repurposing our materials with their information?”

The Sioux Falls Skatepark Association also is planning to team up with leaders on South Dakota reservations and in statewide after-school programs to help build their already-existing skateboarding programs and communities, especially in areas with high teenage suicide rates like the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

“It’s an escape that helps focus your mental state, in particular if you’re struggling with mental health issues, because once you step on a skateboard, you have to focus on riding,” Portz said. “Skateboarding is a community. Skateboarding is a reason. That’s it.”

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