Possible Upcoming Skatepark Renovations

GoSkateUtah is looking for the opinions of skaters in the Salt Lake Area! There is a plan to remodel multiple skateparks including Rose Park, 9th and 9th, and Fairmont. All of these parks have been around in Salt Lake for over a decade and could use a little TLC. Whether that includes new features or just patching concrete that’s for all of us to decide.

History of Fairmont Skatepark

Fairmont was scheduled to open in May of 2004 but ran into a few snags. Unofficially open since Fall 2004, but a Grand Opening was planned for June 18, 2005. Many people were hopping the fence before it was ready for the public, some got ticked and some got away. Really just depends how bad you wanted to skate a brand new park.

Opening day continued to be pushed back because of construction issues including failure to build the park as city plans had been specified. 

According to Brad in a Slug Magazine interview– “We sent someone out to do three site visits during the construction of the park. On the first two trips, everything looked fine. On the third trip, there were parts of the peanut bowl and the deep end of the pool that I had to reject. The geometry is not what we agreed on. The transitions in the deeper pool sections are not correct, and the coping needs to reveal itself 1/4 inch all the way around. These are imperfections that can only be recognized by a skateboarder, and they make a big difference. We’re going to stay on it and make sure the skaters in Salt Lake City get a legit park.”

Fairmont Skatepark currently consists of two large bowls, a large plaza style flat ground section with additional ledges, hand rails, ero gap, etc, are with a large quarter style vert on one end.

History of Rosewood Park Skatepark

Rosewood Skatepark was first built in 2012, by Wormhoudt Inc. Rosewood has been a popular attraction for skaters in the Woods Cross, Bountiful, North Salt Lake, and Salt Lake City area. Other than that, there’s not much info to be found on the construction and opening day of the skatepark.

It currently feature some large hips and quarters, multiple ledges in the larger flat ground area, along with a very popular euro gap that gains most of Rosewoods’ skaters attention. The park also features a plaza style stair sets and down rails. Since the skateparks development, much of the scenery around the park has changed but nothing has been done to the park itself.

History of 9th and 9th Skatepark

9th and 9th resides in Jordan Park along side the International Peace Gardens. The park itself was first developed in 1918, in 1948 the city continued to expand and add a little league baseball field along with a swimming pool and bath house.

The swimming pool stayed for nearly 50 years till plans to demolish the pool and build a skatepark were brought up. According to slc.gov, the grand opening of the skatepark was April 12th, 2002, with the bath house also being demolished 18 years later in 2020 due to complaints of break-ins and vandalism.

The park consists of two large bowl sections, one containing coping all around with multiple transfer spines and a fun transition section, while the other is of a smaller style containing some ledges and a hip. Surrounding the bowls are multiple ledges and down rails with a outer ledge surrounding the park.

Community Wants

Skaters all over Utah have expressed angst towards the people constructing our skateparks. Whether it be for the new Bountiful Skateparks bowls being poorly poured as expressed by activists on the GoSkateUtah Instagram page, or Fairmont’s growing faults in construction and durability. With that many of us at Salty’s have learned, what the skaters of Utah want, is probably best, so we gathered some info from different skaters of Utah to get their input on needed renovations and some of the things that are already great features:

Most responses to our surveying consisted of changes to Fairmont Skatepark, many asking for shade or more ledges, others wish for a complete reconstruction of the park while the design remains the same. Some brought up changes to other parks, like Farmington skatepark needing a remodel, as well as Brighton needing bigger vert features.

Instagram Responses

Insta – @asitzmann

1. Fairmont
2. Fairmont could benefit from better quality concrete and materials keep the layout the same especially keep the bowls Would be awesome to get more vert and more deep bowls.
3. Brighton park, give it bigger vert features. Having a public vert halfpipe would be awesome to bring to Utah.
4. Fairmont and I’d add more vert features.

Insanity Skateboards- @insanity.skateboards

1. Fairmont first
2. No it should remain the same
3. Stair set hand rails and maybe an a frame Maybe add a covered area for shade
4. I would like to see Farmington torn out and remodeled

Bryan Genaro- @bgennar0

1. Fairmont needs to go more than any other park in SLC.
2. Complete restructure of Fairmont is needed!
3. I would love to see an A-Frame with a rail and a ledge on it. More slappy curbs!
4. Every skatepark should have a water fountain, bathrooms, shade and lights.
5. Copper view Skatepark AKA “Midvale park” needs a restructure too.
6. Salt Lake City needs a skatepark like the one in Hyrum!

Jacob Taylor- @buffjakeskates

1. Fairmont.
2. Yes (maybe add a circle flat bar).
3. 8-12 stair handrail and hubba
4. 12 ft long x 2 ft circle flat bar and a bump over bar would be sick.
5. Draper skatepark.
6. I would pick Fairmont and I would keep the same layout but I would improve the transition, Change the square rails to round rails, I would make the down rail bigger and add stairs to one side and also add a hubba.

Salt Lake Skate Spots- @slc.skatespots

1. Rosewood park!
2. Fairmont and Jordan in my opinion should remain as is!
3. It would be nice for the dirt section at the entry to Fairmont to be filled in with grass or concrete. maybe a fun flatground section there!?
4. (What I listed in 3), Plus nicer bathrooms (for all 3 parks).
5. I’m honestly very impressed with Utah’s parks lately. so i can’t really think of anywhere else!
6. I would love to build Jordan park. its such a great and fun park. amazing flow, so i bet the builders and whatnot had so much fun!!
7. Extra input: i think whoever originally designed each park should be recognized and given credit that’s known to the people! Thank you Salty for this opportunity to share my thoughts!

Anonymous Response

1. Jordan and Fairmont 
2.  Rosepark 
3. At Jordan a stair set with handrail would be nice. At Fairmont an A frame rail or a rainbow rail. 
4. Restrooms with running water and soap 
5. Taylorsville and Guthrie 
6. Fairmont. A rainbow rail 

Cam.Bolts – @Cam.Bolts

1. Fairmont 
2. No 
3. Round flat bars 
4. Some trees for shade 
5. Riverton 
6. I wouldn’t rebuild any of them

Rich Wilson – @thrift_store_paintings

1. 1. Rosewood, fairmount then Jordan. Mostly because of proximity to my house. But I never really liked rosewood.
2. The transitions in the big bowl at Fairmount were never great. The figure 8 bowl and the quarter pipe are fun. Rosewood is either too big or street. I don’t skate street. Street is important but it’s not a feature I use. I can’t remember the transition section but I remember only skating it fir a few minutes then driving to 9th abs 9th. I’ve only been to Jordan once and can’t remember it.
3. I mainly skate small transitions. 3-5’ is the sweet spot. A spine is nice. But I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But that’s what I’d look for.
4. Shade, lights abs bathrooms
5. Farmington and Taylorsville. I didn’t know if you can even call those skateparks.
6. I’d like to see a 10’ Skatelite vert in salt lake. Lehi is fun but concrete is tough on the old bones.

Cade

Thank you to everyone who responded! Go throw these guys a follow!

According to GoSkateUtah‘s Instagram survey, a lot of the responses coincide with ours. Many participants focus on Fairmont, with dirt patches needing to be filled and bowls needing either new coping or a re-surfacing. Remodels on 9th and Rosewood are focused more on external features like BBQ spots and shade.

Expectations for Changes

Plans for the new parks are slated for 2046 so we have a while to wait, but this means we have good time to see and get people involved in the improvement of these parks. 

The only way to do that is to make the opinions of the skaters in Salt Lake City louder. So here we are.