Gary New Duluth Skatepark Officially Opens

DULUTH, Minn. — After 11 years of effort and fundraising the Gary New Duluth Skatepark is finally open to the public!

The ribbon cutting happened Sunday and despite the weather dozens of skaters and community members went to show their support and to have some local food of course. The man behind the skate park explaining what it means to him and the people of the Northland to have this state-of-the-art park.

“I grew up about 8 blocks from here, and we didn’t know what we didn’t have, and with my career, I’ve lived all over the world and came back to Duluth, my wife and I wanted to retire here, and to give back to our community, and to be a part of this, it gives you joy, look around, see the smiles on people, you can’t help but feel good about it,” said Mark Boben, GND Development Alliance.

The skatepark is helping to kick off what the people of the city of Duluth hope is a push to update, revitalize, and grow the west Duluth community.

“Over the weekend, Mark was sharing photos of visitors who had already come from out of town to use this facility, and that’s exactly what we want to see happening as we grow our community westward to some of the best neighborhoods that we have in all of Duluth, so a huge shoutout to everyone who helped make this happen. I wanna especially mention Rob, from our city team, whose been involved with it over that entire period of time, but really we all know that this was Mark, and his little crew that would not give up, even when people were skeptical, and here we are today, with a really great turnout, and I’m sure that all of us are gonna grab a scooter or skateboard or a bike, do some flips or something before the day is done,” said Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert.

To learn more about the recreation projects happening in Gary New Duluth, visit this website.