Despite "no trespassing" signs, skateboarders try out the Artist Walk Skatepark in Riverside on Monday, July 29, 2024. The skate park will open in early August. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on July 30, 2024 at 2:53 pm
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The Artist Walk Skatepark in Riverside is set to open sometime in the first week of August. But skateboarders, ignoring the “no trespassing signs,” aren’t waiting.
City officials say they are aware of the issue. “Skaters sneaking in has been minimized due to having a security presence on site at the park,” the city said in an email. But no security guards were present Monday as City Councilman Jimmy Peluso watched skateboarders roll around the new concrete ramps.
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Peluso is more than ready for the imminent ribbon-cutting.
“The week of Aug. 5 is what we are all shooting for, and that is what I have been pushing hard on,” Peluso said. “I honestly would have loved to open it weeks ago, or before summertime because these kids are restless. They want to get over there and they want to enjoy it, and I understand that they do. But we don’t want people to break the law.”
The skate park lies in the shade of the Fuller Warren Bridge. In between on- and off-ramps to the bridge from Park Street, the park has wide, curving concrete walkways and benches surrounded by fresh landscaping as multiple ramps, rails and other skateboard necessities curve around the concrete bridge pillars.
The $8.8 million Artist Walk park is next to the Riverside Avenue end of a pedestrian walkway built a few years ago to connect walkers, runners and bicyclists with San Marco across the St. Johns River. The skate park also is across the street from the 15-year-old Riverside Arts Market, providing what the city said is a much-needed public space connecting historic Riverside and Downtown’s Brooklyn neighborhood.
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Building the park under the bridge will eliminate what many had seen as a “giant barrier” between Riverside and the Brooklyn communities, Peluso said.
“We need more connectivity,” Peluso said. “You want these public spaces to be places where people want to go. I love to go to Memorial Park or Riverside Park, where you sit on the benches and enjoy the nature of it all. But we need other parks that bring people together in other ways, which is why I am so excited by this.”
Groundbreaking for the skate park took place a year ago on a former dirt lot stretching for three city blocks between Riverside Avenue and Park Street under the bridge. The skate park is called a linear park space because it has multiuse trails, parking and a paved plaza with space where local artists can show off their work. Patches of synthetic turf fill in along winding walkways.
City Council had to vote on a no-cost lease for the 6-acre site because it’s under a bridge operated by the Florida Department of Transportation. They did that a week ago. It now awaits Mayor Donna Deegan’s approval, at which point the fence around the park will come down.
The new park was funded by the city and the Florida Department of Transportation. The park will also be connected to the Emerald Trail in Jacksonville. Portions of the trail opened in the LaVilla community in recent weeks.
“This is going to be a really cool neighborhood, and a connected area as we go forward,” Peluso said.
There is no exact date for the park’s opening, Peluso said. But the opening is another piece of new development that includes a new hotel a few blocks down Park Street and other improvements planned in the Brooklyn and LaVilla communities, he said. Plans include a “Road Diet” on Park Street, with room for a two-way bicycle traffic, expanded sidewalk areas, safer pedestrian crossings and more trees.
“We are going to see Park Street really activated in the next two years,” Peluso said. “To see that continuation go all the way through to the remainder of Park Street and all the way into the Riverside area would be great. And one way to help make sure it is activated is to tie it directly into this skatepark and RAM,” short for the Riverside Arts Market.
As for the skateboarders trespassing in the park, Peluso said he would report it to the city to tell the kids to move along.
This story was updated July 31, 2024, to clarify that the $8.8 million cost covered the entire park, not just the skating portions.
