HUNTSVILLE, Ala — A project a long time in the making has skaters everywhere rejoicing. "There was a skateboard park here in the late seventies, early eighties. and a lot of people that grew up skating that park wanted to bring skateboarding back to the Huntsville community," Curt Baker, Construction Project Manager for Team Pain shares. "So, they donated their time and energy and effort and even a lot of money into making this project a reality."
The city of Huntsville unveiled Get-A-Way Skatepark and Kids Space Playground at John Hunt Park. The playground and skatepark cover nearly five acres at John Hunt Park at a combined construction cost of $6.8 million. Both projects include ample parking, landscaping, shade installations, seating, and water stations and restrooms.
"I feel like sometimes I might have the tiger by the tail," Director of Parks and Rec James Gossett shares. "We got a lot of people out here and a lot of people are very excited about it. We're going to have people coming from all over the Southeastern United States to visit the skate park."
The park is designed to mix the old with the new. " Skateboard design and construction were in its infancy, so it was more of a magic carpet ride.," Baker shares. "It was more about riding the concrete surface like waves are like snowboarding. Today's park, we kept some of that feel the original park, but there's a lot more areas to do tricks and new maneuvers for the newer generation."
Parents and their littles ones also have a renewed space for fun. " I think our community is really, really wanting to get in Kid Space and use it and since we've closed it, we've had a lot of interest in it," Gossett shares. "We're really happy that our community showed up for the playground though, and it will be exciting to see kids that that may not have been able to get on the existing kids' space as it was to be able to use this space if they have any kind of disabilities. The park was designed to, you know, kind of allow them to do some things they couldn't do before."
The playground is a celebration of Huntsville’s past, present and future. " It was designed for past, present and future," Gossett shares. " So, you see some things from the past. If you look at the train and the present, you see the rocket and the big slide and there's three tunnels there, but they lead you to what is really the future, what is a futuristic space that kids can play in and make up their own kind of play."