Round Rock Skate Park is Best in Texas

Via Statesman.com (local) -

ROUND ROCK — Skateboarders are coming to check out what some are already calling the best skate park in Texas.

The skate park behind the Clay Madsen Recreation Center was not supposed to open until the summer, but skateboarders were so eager for a peek that the Parks and Recreation Department opened it March 5 after the first phase was completed.

The park will close again Sunday so construction can start on a section with street elements, such as stairs and railings. It is scheduled to reopen by the time schools let out in May.

The park is being constructed in two phases because, after the first bid was accepted, the city approved more money for an addition.

Jon Aultman and Jeff Little took off early from work and drove up from Austin last week to check it out.

Their verdict? "A 9 out of 10," said Aultman, who works for Spa Skatepark Construction in Austin.

" 'Good pool coping' is all you have to say," he said, using a term to describe the edges of the park's large concrete bowl.

Part of the edges have metal lining, and others are made of concrete. That is good, they said, because boards grind against both textures.

Only the bowl section of the park is open, but it has been busy every day.

"The lunchtime crowd really surprised me," said David Buzzell, Round Rock's park development specialist. "There are a lot more older guys skating."

Jack Ranstrom, 41, is one of them.

"This is how we grew up," Ranstrom said, adding that in the 1980s, he hung out with skaters in Southern California.

Back then, he said, city governments were not interested in building parks that welcomed skaters. Skateboarders would often sneak into a backyard, drain a swimming pool and skate in the empty bowl before the owners got home.

Ranstrom lives in Austin and manages Mozart's Coffee Roasters on Lake Austin Boulevard. He raised two daughters alone and then found himself with an empty nest.

After 20 years, he picked up a board again. "I really thought I was just going to get 20 minutes of cardio, three times a week," he said. "I ended up making 20 close friends out of it."

Even though the Round Rock skate park is only half-finished, Ranstrom and others say it is the best in the area, maybe the Southwest. They say the bowl is extremely well constructed.

"The way people keep talking about this park is that it's the best in Texas," Buzzell said.