new skateboard park under consideration in las cruces

The City of Las Cruces may see the construction of a new skateboard park.

Skateboard enthusiasts in the city say the existing 20 year-old skate park at 151 N. Walnut Street is not up to current skateboard park standards.

That park, roughly 2 miles to the east of downtown Las Cruces, was built at a cost of $300,000.

Attending a recent meeting of the Las Cruces City Council, those enthusiasts prompted council members to promise to consider options for designing and building an entirely new skateboard park.

That park could be built at a new site in Las Cruces, or may entail a reconfiguring of the existing Walnut Street park. It has also been suggested that a handful of smaller skateboard parks could be constructed at various locations in the city.

The number of skate parks built nationally since the construction of the Walnut Street park has exploded and now totals around six hundred.

According to the nonprofit, skateboard Tony Hawk Foundation, such parks on average measure just under 12,000 square feet.

The largest parks are seen in New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado, among the other Mountain region states, measuring on average around 16,000 square feet.

The average cost for such parks nationally range between $134,000 and $315,000.

By Garry Boulard

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