For three years, Mike Donelon has had an oceanfront view to watch the sport of skateboarding go from renegade to recreation.
Donelon, a Long Beach City Council member from 1994 to 1998, has been out of the political fray for some time. But when the city announced in May it would look for potential spots for new skateparks, he agreed to hand out the flyers.
The city of Long Beach has begun to study the possibility of new skateparks citywide. In concert with the study, officials with the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine released a survey to field public input on where people would want a park and what amenities it should include.
Results from the survey and study will come before the City Council sometime between November and December, compiled as a list of recommended sites with data on where the public stands.
This comes two months after Councilmembers Megan Kerr, who represents East Long Beach and Bixby Knolls, and Cindy Allen, who represents the city’s Downtown, referred the item out of interest that there be more skateparks available to constituents.
Many parks in either of their districts are tucked away in the far corners, the council members said, according to a Long Beach Post report. “As we get more interest and more funding, we have spaces already identified to be able to add to this tradition of skating in this city,” Kerr said at the meeting.
Long Beach has 10 skateparks within its limits, three of which are Downtown and most of which run adjacent to Pacific Coast Highway, dotting the neighborhoods of Washington, East Long Beach, Alamitos Beach, Central Long Beach, West Long Beach and North Long Beach.
Flyers were taken to several in-town skate shops, including Pharmacy Boardshop and East 4th Skate. At Pharmacy Boardshop, one of the storerunners, he goes by “Slink,” said, “The more skateparks the merrier.”
According to some locals, this spread of amenities has lent Long Beach renown for owning skate culture without the parks to properly host it.
“We honestly haven’t had one really good, decent skatepark yet — all of our skateparks are pretty small,” Slink said, explaining that many who move here to skate will travel to Los Angeles or Orange County as “they have the better parks that are more street-league type courses where you can practice.”
“I feel like we need that one high-quality skatepark that is so good it could be a qualifier for some competitions,” he added.
Kendall Ishie, with Long Beach Skate Company, said he loves the idea of new parks, particularly near Belmont Shore. “On the beach would be sick,” Ishie said. But he does wish some funding could go toward renovating existing parks, to offer things like shading, water fountains and lighting.
“Well, bathrooms would just have the homeless take over it, so water fountains would be sick and shade is always needed here in Long Beach,” Ishie said. “That’s why the park on Seventh Street is so sick because it has shade, but there’s nothing to skate there.”
Support watchdog journalism
Who has eyes on City Hall? We do. The Long Beach Post is now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donate now to support independent accountability journalism that cuts through the political spin.
Julian Heller, with East 4th Skate shop, agreed. Spots like El Dorado Skatepark are shopworn and weathered, to the point where a lot of his friends decline to skate there. “I feel like it was outdated 15 years ago,” Heller said.
Twenty-seven locations were optioned as potential sites in the survey, with a space at the bottom to allow respondents to fill in their own locations.
Donelon said he’d like to see a premier park built along Alamitos Beach to serve as a staple sight that competes with the city’s Convention Center and is comparable to the 16,000-square-foot iconic Venice Beach Skatepark that attracts tourists, film sets and international skaters.
“It’s something we need here in Long Beach,” Donelon said. “It’s something that’s always been talked about. … The conversations have always been that Long Beach doesn’t have an official skatepark that everybody is looking for, and I think it’s time for Long Beach to make that happen.”
In a draft report he helped prepare, Donelon estimates the 25,000 square-foot vision would cost $4 million but would serve as a permanent, legacy skatepark capable of hosting competitions like the X Games — which requires meeting criteria set by the World Skateboarding League.
By comparison, Silverado Skatepark, arguably the most popular in the city, is only 5,000 square feet.
Attempts to bring it here began in the late ’90s when Donelon first took the council seat. At the time, skating was seen as a marginalized activity, prohibited by many communities and embraced by early skaters for its go-to-hell attitude.
But the momentum has shifted over the decades. Donelon, who has since founded the Action Sports Kids Foundation, said the timing for it is perfect. The great deal of Nimby-ism that once plagued developments has largely subsided. Skateboarding, since 2020, has been an official Olympic sport.
The proposed park, he said, will be one of many considered this fall.
“I’m curious what the feeling will be from the community at large,” Donelon said. “In 1996, when I was on the council, it was not very positive. ‘Skateboarding is a fad, it’s not going to last, it’s all about guys — it was more negative than anything.’ But it turned out well.”
For those interested in completing the survey, visit tinyurl.com/skatesurveyLB or the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine’s webpage at longbeach.gov/park. The survey closes on Aug. 31.