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The excitement over Hagerstown's own skateboard park isn't slowing down as the moments click down to a party Saturday to celebrate its completion.
Professional skate demonstrations, live music, a best skate trick competition, food trucks and retail vendors are expected to help launch a grand opening for the Hagerstown Skatepark at Fairgrounds Park starting at 1 p.m.
The event marks more than a year's worth of work in developing the park, a $705,000 facility built by a California designer.
Phil Scolaro is a member of a task force that was formed by the Hagerstown City Council to work on the development of the park.
He came to the project from two different perspectives.
A special place for kids
First, he is the organizational development coordinator for Potomac Case Management, a local mental health agency. He has long worked on the problem of youth violence and because he put in many years as a skateboard rider himself, he understands how the sport has given individuals a special sense of freedom, particularly youngsters who experience anxiety or feel they don't fit in.
As the same time, skateboarding has exploded in poplularity.
"It's just risen to a stage of legitimacy," said Scolaro said in a phone interview.
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Local riders couldn't believe something like this was happening in Hagerstown.
During a community meeting in May 2021 at the basketball court where the facility was built, skateboarders and others were invited to give input on the design of the park.
One excited rider predicted youths will be "mobbing" the track.
City Engineer Rodney Tissue said it was impressive how Scolaro's group generated community interest in the project and raised more than $30,000 for it. The Washington County Board of Commissioners chipped-in another $150,000 toward it.
"We have done many community-generated, driven projects but this one was noteworthy in that the city council appointed a citizen task force to develop the proposal for the park and assist in selecting the designer and contractor," Tissue said.
'Grading wizards' at work
Park designer Spohn Ranch started in Los Angeles and its work has stretched around the globe. Through 30 years of experience, the company has mastered a broad range of skills, and its landscape designers, iron workers and "grading wizards" are able to produce the "highest-quality, wheel-focused terrain possible," according to the company's website.
The Hagerstown design incorporates a a mix of street design, which imitates what riders might encounter in an urban setting like walls and steps, with "transition" areas, illustrated by designs like bowls that riders can zip through.
Spohn Ranch uses its own "proprietary" concrete to form its designs, Scolaro said.
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Scolaro said the Hagerstown surface also features a wavy section that looks as if someone shook a bed sheet in the wind and froze it.
"It's beautiful," he said.
Riders will skate at their own risk at the park and its hours will match those of Fairgrounds Park, which is dusk to dawn, Scolaro said.
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