AusLeisure

The City of Sydney has announced what will be one of city’s biggest public skate spaces with plans for a new skate plaza at Sydney Park.

A proposed scope of works, scheduled to be considered by the City of Sydney Council later this month, outlines the concept design for a major urban skate plaza and flow bowl suitable for skateboards, scooters and BMX bikes.

Commenting on the plan, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore stated “this proposed skate space marks another major step in the transformation of Sydney Park from an industrial site some years ago, into a 44 hectare park land to be enjoyed by tens of thousands of residents.

“We’ve listened to calls from the city’s skateboarding community who’ve been asking for more skate facilities for some time.

“Not only are we building a new skate space in Sydney Park, we’re including the flow bowl straightaway rather than building it in a few years as originally planned. This is a result of extensive feedback we received when consulting with our communities.”

Features of the new skate space include:

• Traditional park skate zone suitable for all skill levels and disciplines, featuring a combination of street and bowl style obstacles 
• Lineal plaza zone featuring low level obstacles to allow for street style technical tricks 
• Beginners bowl for new skaters to hone their skills 
• Flow bowl varying in depth from 1.5 to 3 metres, suitable for skaters of intermediate or advanced ability. 

Lord Mayor Moore added “with more than 2,000 skateboarders living in our area, and around 56,000 skateboarders living within 20 kilometres of Sydney Park - we know this skate park will be extremely popular from day one.

“The park will link with the new children’s bike track and gymkhana covered area, allowing children to progress into the skate space as they grow up.

“As part of the works, we’ve also proposed a new pathway system to provide the missing link to the southern area of the park.”

Cameron Sparkes, from the Sydney Skateboard Association, said the number of skateboarders was growing rapidly and would welcome the skate space.

Sparkes added “the concept designs for this park are amazing and it looks like it could be one of the better public skate spaces in Sydney

“We want to see more public skate parks and shared spaces in the City of Sydney and this is a great start.

“Our community is rapidly growing. Skateboarding is debuting as an Olympic sport in Tokyo for the 2020 games and we’ve already seen a huge increase in participation rates since that announcement in early 2016.

“Our community’s demographic is extremely broad. All year round you can find boys and girls as young as six at skate parks, right through to people aged over 50.”

The City is currently restoring the landmark Sydney Park chimneys, remnants of the former brickworks that have towered over the inner city since 1893.

Construction is also underway on the Sydney City Farm, an urban architecture project in the southern end of the park. The farm will grow seasonal produce to be sold at farmer’s markets and host workshops and community events.

If approved, construction of the skate space is scheduled to begin in April 2018 and be completed by mid-2019.

Images: The planned skate plaza (top) and its proposed flow bowl (below).

8th December 2016 - LANDMARK STUDY FINDS SPORT STRUGGLING TO KEEP YOUTH ENGAGED 

27th November 2016 - SYDNEY EASTERN SUBURBS PARK ENHANCED WITH SKATE PARK AND INCLUSIVE PLAYGROUND 

26th May 2016 - SYDNEY’S RECREATION AND OPEN SPACE GETS $400 MILLION FUNDING BOOST

22nd May 2016 - LIVEABLE CITIES NEED EXPERIENCE-BUILDING PARKS 

17th November 2015 - SKATE PLAZA FOR NEW FORESHORE PARK ON SYDNEY HARBOUR 

9th October 2015 - ADVENTURE DAY AT SYDNEY PARK LAUNCHES RIDES FESTIVAL

11th September 2015 - LOCAL LANGUAGE NAMES FOR SYDNEY PARK WETLANDS

11th November 2014 - HARVESTED WATER TO REVITALISE SYDNEY PARK

Support our industry news service
We hope that you value the news that we publish so while you're here can we ask for your support?

As an independent publisher, we need reader support for our industry news gathering so ask that - if you don't already do so - you back us by subscribing to the printed Australasian Leisure Management magazine and/or our online news.