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Gainesville Skatepark Opens
Since my days as a seventh grader at Fort Clarke Middle School, skateboarding has been a pretty big deal in Gainesville with a fairly large number of skaters and a good scene going on, not suprirsing given that the University of Florida and Santa Fe Community College both are in Gainesville. However, Gainesville has lagged behind in one essential area with respect to skateboarding: it has lacked a real skatepark. That is, until now, with the opening of the new Gainesville Skatepark, a large indoor facility recently established near the corner of Waldo Road and 39th Avenue. Skatepark co-owner Phil Hajal who also owns Fluid Skate Shop explained to me how the park came about. "We realized that skaters needed a safe, indoor, place to skate in town", Hajal stated. The city had already built two skateparks with help from local skateboarders but these were both outdoor parks and rather small and limited in what they offered. "The parks at Westside [Park] and Citizens' Field are just small and outdoors and don't offer as much as a lot of skaters would like so this [effort] is a way of offering more", Hajal explained. Hajal and his business partner and co-owner, Josh Neuman, saw the oppurtunity to purchase a warehouse on Waldo Road and convert it to an indoor skatepark.
"We were going to use all this space for a skatepark, but were then approached by a moving company to rent out half the warehouse for their operations so we went ahead and rented half the space out to them because that's additional income for us. Otherwise, fees from the skatepark and the skateshop are our income", said Hajal. Fluid Skate Shop had been located on University Avenue between the University of Florida campus and downtown but has moved into the skatepark, taking up the front part of the complex. Aside from skateboarders, the park is also open up to BMX bikers on Tuesdays and Thursdays and BMX cyclists have made up a fair number of the park's users according to Hajal. The fact that the park is covered with a roof and otherwise protected from weather allows for not only the chance to skate on rainy days but better protection of the park itself. "What we want here is a type of cross between Kona [skatepark in Jacksonville] and the Skatepark of Tampa. Kona being more family-friendly and Tampa being more hardcore. But we don't want it to be dirty, like some parks, that are so dirty you fall down in them and you're
Of course, skateparks by their very nature are not easy to keep clean and tidy but the indoor setting should certainly help. Aside from Hajal and Neuman, the park has several "kids who work in the park and skate shop part-time", Hajal explained. Hajal and Neuman though have made the park their main business for now and Hajal explained that he is often there from opening hours to after ten at night when the park has closed. "Most of the skaters are high school kids, not little kids and not college students, but we get both of those too", Hajal said. "Most kids are between fourteen and eighteen though." The skatepark will celebrate its grand opening on the thirteenth of December, from ten in the morning to around ten at night. The grand opening will feature demonstrations by professional skateboarders and BMX bikers and a variety of bands playing including the Hollowbody Hellraisers, Watson, and Reform. The event should be an ideal time for the public to get to know the new park. "We seek a balance, we want a place that is kid-friendly but also a place that will attract older skaters who are college-aged and beyond", Hajal said. "So with this grand opening we'll start to see how that's going to work out for us." Aside from the skatepark itself, Fluid Skate Shop continues a tradition of service that local Gainesville skaters have enjoyed for years. The shop offers one of the largest selections of skateboard deaks, trucks, wheels, and other essentials for skateboarding. Also, they are the area's only dealer of the popular Nike SB skateboarding shoes and a variety of other skateboarding sneakers. "We had this dream and a lot of local skaters shared it and now it's real so we'll see where things go from here", Hajal explained. Vital information for the Gainesville Skatepark:Hours of Operation Membership Fees Monday - Thursday: All Day Non member rate: $7.00 Friday - Sunday: All Day Member: $5.00 Contact Information 3500 NE Waldo Rd, STE B
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