New Columbia Falls Skate Park to Get Grand Opening Treatment
Kicking off at noon and going until 5 p.m., the grand opening event will include a food truck, and giveaways of skateboards, helmets and other gear.
By Mike Kordenbrock
Fresh off a Thursday afternoon session at the new Columbia Falls skate park, Matt Holloway said that the conditions “couldn’t be better.”
The longtime skateboarder, and founding member of the Badrock Skate Park Association said that in the few weeks since the park opened earlier this month it has at times resembled an anthill with just how much activity it’s attracted.
Skateboards, bicycles and scooters, all attached in some way or another to a rider, have worked over seemingly every contour of the concrete expanse on a daily basis.
“I don’t know where all these kids have come from that I see there after school. They have come out of the woodwork,” Holloway said.
The hum of activity at the park is the result of a multiyear effort to bring Columbia Falls a skate park, an effort which organizers characterized as having moved along slowly before things began to come together very quickly. In their view the completion of the skate park is a cause for celebration, and they’re hoping the community comes out this Saturday for an official grand opening event.
Kicking off at noon and going until 5 p.m. on April 26, the grand opening event will include a food truck, and giveaways of skateboards, helmets and other gear. Holloway also said that pro skateboarders Cody Lockwood and Kevin Kowalski plan to be in attendance, and should have a chance to showcase their skills for the crowd. There will be some opening remarks, roughly around 1:15 p.m., but otherwise the goal is to have a casual atmosphere.
After breaking ground last August, Rebecca Powell, another Badrock Skate Park Association board member, recalled that the final permits and approvals were granted on a Tuesday; the very next morning, crew members from contractor Dreamland Skateparks (led by Danyel Scott, who is originally from Whitefish) were out starting on the skate park at 8 a.m.
Powell was also there when the park had something of a soft opening on April 4. Dreamland Skateparks had come out to seal the concrete, which was pretty much the last task left to complete by the time the snow started to fall at the start of this winter. That’s despite an Oct. 20 theft of tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of tools and equipment from a storage container at the construction site.
Representatives from the City of Columbia Falls came out after the concrete sealing was completed to do a walkthrough, ownership was handed over to the city, and then the fences surrounding the park were opened up.
“I mean even when we were doing the walkthrough, there were people driving by real slowly to see if it was open,” Powell said.
Word spread quickly, and she guessed there have been 20-plus people gathered there every day after school in the weeks since. Holloway said the park even has a lunchtime crowd of skateboarders who book it from Columbia Falls High School, just to get 20 minute of feverish skating in before they head back to class.
Throughout the planning process, Holloway said it was important that the park be accessible by foot, by bike, or by skateboard, which has made the payoff of seeing people get there without a car that much more satisfying.
Located at Fenholt Park, the 12,000-square-foot park was originally designed by Holloway and fellow Skate Park Association board member Simon Smith, with some additional input from other skateboarders and community members.
The concept was to have a park that flows very well; or as Holloway put it, they wanted you to be able to connect through the whole park without having to push. It’s also not a heavily scripted park, meaning there are opportunities to connect a range of points, features and lines of movement, as opposed to just going back-and-forth between a limited number of spots.
“And we wanted something for all levels, and I think it accomplishes that really well. You can be a beginner and have plenty of fun, and you can be a pro and still scare yourself,” he said. “It’s great in that sense.”
The Badrock Skate Park Association board members assembled in 2022, and started communicating with the City of Columbia Falls about the project, which the city supported, but was reluctant to commit taxpayer dollars toward. That meant the association had to fundraise over $800,000 if they wanted to see their vision become a reality. There’s still some ongoing fundraising, which Powell said at this point is for a few picnic benches, a bike rack, and a couple other things.
The success of the effort has prompted questions from other people with similar ideas. Powell said she’s heard from people interested in getting a local splash pad built, and that she’s even been contacted by people in Butte about the possibility of a skate park there. When people ask how they got it done, she sums it up like this: “It’s a lot of work. If one person could do it, it would have been done years ago but it takes the right people at the right time working together, and we were lucky.”
As for the celebration this weekend, Powell shared some details about what attendees can expect. She said that a $1,000 Roundup For Safety Grant from Flathead Electric Cooperative has helped finance a helmet giveaway, and that there will also be giveaways of different skateboard parts and components, including decks. There’s also going to be a work station set up for people to either build boards, or install new components and learn how to maintain their board. There will also be skate park t-shirts for sale.
As he reflected on what it all means, Holloway said it boils down to the opportunity the park presents to the family that is the local skateboarding community.
“It’s a place where my hope is that the generations of kids can come and see the same value in it, and that they take care of the place, they respect the place, and they respect each other, and keep it a good thing,” he said.