13 October 2024
DULUTH — An 11-year community effort to revitalize the Gary-New Duluth Rec Center marked a triumphant milestone on Sunday as the center’s $1.8 million skate park was officially opened to the public.
“We started the GND REC vision in 2013,” Mark Boben, president of the GND Development Alliance, told reporters after a ceremonial ribbon cutting. “That included the community center, soccer fields, a dog park, community garden and a sport court — and the crown jewel that you’re seeing today, the skate park.”
The 10,000-square-foot skate park took five years to build, with Boben and his allies securing funding from a variety of public and private sources as construction costs ballooned during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What a giving community we live in,” said Boben during the ceremony, citing contributions from “individuals, communities, private businesses, the trade unions, city government, county government. It’s just amazing.”
Boben and local government representatives, including Mayor Roger Reinert, stood on the raised surface at the center of the skate park on Sunday afternoon for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting. Boben asked Reinert to wield the giant scissors, but the mayor insisted the honor belonged to Boben, who launched the project to enrich the neighborhood where he was raised.
“I grew up about eight blocks from here, and we didn’t have much out here,” Boben told reporters. “As a kid, we didn’t know what we didn’t have. With my career, I’ve lived all over the world and came back to Duluth. My wife and I wanted to retire here and to give back to our community.”
“We all know this was (achieved by) Mark Boben and his little crew that would not give up, even when people were skeptical,” Reinert said during the ceremony. “Here we are today with a really great turnout, and I’m sure that all of us are going to grab a scooter or skateboard or a bike, do some flips or something.”
At that remark, an onlooker handed a skateboard up to the mayor, prompting laughter and cheers among the dozens of people present. Reinert didn’t attempt any flips, but after the ceremony he did hop onto a board and ride down one of the park’s smooth slopes.
Brad Kostiuk of Duluth, a longtime skateboarder, told the News Tribune that “anticipation has been brewing” for the completed facility. “Having something brand-new and all concrete, really, this is the gold standard of skate parks,” said Kostiuk.
In raising the bar for skate park quality, organizers and funders hope to make the facility a regional draw. “We are bringing people in from the Twin Cities, from Michigan, from North Dakota,” Boben told reporters. “We even had calls from Canada asking when this is done.” Boben hopes that the facility can host a festival featuring professional skateboarders as soon as next summer.
“Maybe someday we will have somebody from here that goes to the Olympics, or maybe somebody from the Olympics is coming here,” Janet Kennedy told the News Tribune after the ribbon-cutting. Kennedy represents the 5th District, including Gary-New Duluth, on the City Council.
Kennedy said the new facility will help elevate skateboarding as a regional pastime, likening the park to Spirit Mountain as a civic recreation facility that can become a powerful draw. “It started with a little bit of tourism tax dollars,” said Kennedy, “and then it became known that this could become a bigger, more regional recreational and business venture.”
“You can see the joy on the little guys on their bikes, on their scooters,” said Boben. (Sunday’s park users were indeed, overwhelmingly, guys.) Boben also pointed to “the skateboarders that are here from Minneapolis, that have come up just for the day to go skateboarding.”
Building a world-class skate park isn’t just a matter of pouring concrete, Boben told reporters. “It’s not what you see; it’s what you don’t see because we had to do all the excavating. We put drain pipes underneath this skate park to get the water to run away. We’ve got footings that go seven feet down into the earth.”
While the placing of the recreation center’s “crown jewel” marks a major milestone, Boben said there’s still work to be done. He indicated a parking lot under construction next to the skate park, and noted that a mural will be added to the park’s exterior.
“We’d like to put in a children’s playground for 4- to 7-year-olds,” Boben added. “There’s always a dream. What can you do? How can we make it better for the community?”
Skateboarders using the new park on Sunday noted that, unlike local facilities such as the Superior Skate Park, the Gary-New Duluth park offers a continuous concrete surface. (Superior is currently in the planning stages of a replacement for its skate park, with the new elements to be cast-in-place concrete like the Gary-New Duluth park.)
“It’s actually built really well, and it’s a proper concrete park, which we haven’t had,” said skateboarder Anthony Brown of Duluth while pausing between runs. “You go fast. It’s really fun.”
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