Columbia Falls City Council Awards Skatepark Bid to Dreamland Skateparks

For a Columbia Falls community dreaming of having its own skatepark for years, progress has seemed to be very stop-and-go — whispers here, vague plans there, dreams everywhere. In late 2021, skateboarder and former educator Matt Holloway, alongside Rebecca Powell, Tyrel Johnson and Simon Smith, formed the Badrock Skatepark Association (BSA) to advocate for a skatepark in the city and momentum began building, but finding the right location proved difficult.

At Monday’s city council meeting, BSA passed the last hurdle towards bringing the park to fruition. Councilors unanimously voted to award the nearly $589,000 construction bid to Dreamland Skateparks to build a 12,000-square-foot skatepark in Fenholt Park.

“I think it’s seemed to the public like this idea has been at a standstill for a while, but we’ve been doing so much behind the scenes to get to this point,” BSA president Holloway said. “The process has been long and gradual, but now it’s full throttle until the park’s finished and we’re skateboarding.”

Dreamland Skateparks, founded by pro skateboarder Mark Scott and his wife, Danyel, has built skateparks around the world, including more than a dozen in Montana. Danyel is originally from Whitefish.

“It’s been an honor to get to be a part of this process. It’s seven minutes from my house to the site,” Danyel Scott told the city council. “For me, this is also my community and to be able to give back in this way is really awesome.”

Dreamland built the original Dave Olseth Memorial Skatepark in Whitefish nearly two decades ago and completed a 6,500-square-foot expansion last year. They just finished up work on new parks in Ronan and Arlee, and are now preparing to break ground in Columbia Falls’ Fenholt Park.  

“Right now every day counts for us,” Scott told the Beacon after the council meeting. “People say ‘oh, start in the spring,’ but then you’ve lost your spring and early summer for the kids to ride, so our goal is really to be done before the winter season and be fully open by the spring.”

The skatepark will be one of the largest single-phase builds Dreamland has done in Montana. The BSA led the design phase with several open houses for the community, and especially younger skateboarders, to solicit their ideas.

The preliminary park design flows smoothly from the more beginner ledges, curves and bars in the front of the park to the advanced elements including the five-foot deep bowl and seven-foot oververt in the back. Scott said that like all parks Dreamland builds, this one will have its own unique flavor to it.

“There’s a little bit of everything in the design. Everything that was mentioned to us we managed to get in there,” Holloway said. “I wanted you to be able to cruise around the whole park and never put your foot down. There’s really something for everyone.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” he added. “We’re so thankful for how the community came together in so many different ways and are ready to finally give them the skatepark they deserve.”