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There are 54 Skate Parks in San Diego! Every year this list grows larger and larger. Because of the efforts of Skatepark Advocacy groups San Diego has a ton of great parks to choose from! The OB Skatepark and Memorial Skatepark where two of the first parks to bring in the new age of Skate Parks in San Diego.

Memorial Skatepark is featured in many skateboard magazines. Probably the most popular skatepark in San Diego, Memorial Skatepark is a good example of why more parks are needed! On any given day, skaters from all over San Diego come to skate Memorial Skatepark’s awesome obstacles. It’s great to see the many different generations of skateboards enjoying themselves in the same place. Fathers teaching sons how to drop in for the first time. Ex Pro Skateboarders enjoying a legal place to skate, Sponsored Amateurs and new Pro’s perfecting and learning new tricks to take on a worldwide tour, or just the guy trying to burn off some steam after a days work.

OB Skatepark is a great example of how long it takes to get a skatepark built. I remember going into Just Skate and seeing a model of a proposed skatepark back in the early 90’s! Who would have thought that years later a +40,000 Sq Ft park would open. Skatepark Advocacy can be a long and painful process. It sure feels good when years and years of hard work pay off with a beautiful park like the OB Skatepark.

What is the future of Skate Parks in San Diego? The sky’s the limit! Encinitas has a new park on the way! Oceanside has a few parks planned. North Park is beginning the process of finding a suitable location for a skatepark. Willie Santos and the workshop crew are working hard on getting a park built near the Epicentre. Dana Brown and her crew have been working tirelessly on getting another park built in Tierrasanta. But let’s not stop there. Pacific Beach needs a skate park! Spring Valley needs a skate park! Escondido needs another park! Vista needs a park! Mission Beach needs a skate park! La Jolla needs a skate park! Point Loma needs a skate park!

Pacific beach needs a skatepark! With so many skateboarders living in P.B., you have to wonder why there is not a great public skatepark in this part of San Diego. The saying “If your city doesn’t have a skatepark, your city IS the skatepark” holds very true for Pacific Beach. Over the years P.B. has served as a great place for skate spots. Some of the first hand rails ever skated on video were at P.B. Middle School. Not to mention the benches at the end of Hornblend (now gone) were sessioned for many summers. The bump to rail on Everts is still be skated! Why not create a place to channel all of this skate energy?

Pacific Beach was once the epicenter of the San Diego skate scene. Pro skateboarders would move to Pacific Beach from all over the country. Rob Dyrdek, Kelly Bird, Sal Barbier and Brian Lotti to name a few.

There are more surf and skate shops per square mile than in any other part of San Diego. By this fact alone a good public park in Pacific Beach would definitely have a positive impact to P.B. Business. There is no arguing that the alcohol ban has affected beach attendance, a skatepark would bring more people back to Pacific Beach.

Some might say that technically there is a skatepark in Pacific Beach but it’s on private land. The Campland On The Bay skatepark in Pacific Beach opened in 2009 and is available to residents and guests of Campland On The Bay. Not the same as having a public park available to all!

A small park similar to the Martin Luther King park in Oceanside, located near the beach would be a perfect addition to town of P.B.. Not only would it be a great place for San Diego skateboarder to come too, but also a great tourist attraction. Most people from out of town probably think there is a skatepark in every southern california town anyway!

North Park Skatepark coming soon? Preliminary meetings to start a North Park Skatepark Advocacy Group have been held and looks like the ball will start rolling on a skatepark. A few locations have been discussed including the water tower and the park by the water tower. As with all skateparks this is the beginning of the long process of getting a skatepark built and is by no means a done deal.

Keep checking back for updates!