AusLeisure

The $1.94 million redevelopment of Geelong’s popular Waurn Ponds Skate Park is now complete, making it a destination for skate and other wheeled sport enthusiasts.

Expert skate park and youth space designers Convic developed the plans for the upgrade based on input from the local skate community.

For the construction of the skate park, the City contracted Concrete Skate Parks, whose founder, owner, designer, engineer and builder is a passionate skateboarder with a strong engineering background.

Informed by two rounds of community consultation in 2021, the skate park upgrade design retained and improved popular elements of the former skate park, such as the park’s “Snake Run” bowl, “Drain” area and iconic steel halfpipe, while incorporating a new space to create better connections between site skate and play elements.

The facility now includes:

• a new street drain area
• a new snake run bowl
• improved street plaza
• a youth active recreation area with various activity options
• an additional shade structure and seating areas
• a new smart node that hosts a range of digital infrastructure.

The upgrade was made possible via a $600,000 investment by the City of Greater Geelong and $1.34 million from the Victorian Government through its Sport and Recreation Victoria Community Sport Stimulus Infrastructure Grant Program.

Funding towards the smart node came from a wider grant through the Victorian Government's Connecting Regional Communities Program.

Construction on the redeveloped Waurn Ponds Skate Park commenced in August 2022.

Background
The Waurn Ponds skate park has a history of attracting skaters from far and wide, including Tony Hawk, the American professional skateboarder, who visited to ride the steel halfpipe in 1999.

During his demonstration in front of a large crowd, Tony Hawk successfully landed a transfer air from the large vertical ramp to the spine ramp. The footage of which appeared in the introduction video to the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 video game that was released in 2000.

Image. Waurn Ponds Skate Park Credit: City of Greater Geelong

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