Work on skate park in Mount Prospect Park could begin next spring
Renderings courtesy of NYC Parks
Work on an $11 million skatepark in Brooklyn’s Mount Prospect Park could begin next spring after New York City’s Public Design Commission and the local community board approved the project last month. Known as the Brooklyn Skate Garden, the project is one of four skateparks planned across the five boroughs through a partnership with legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk to bring public skating facilities to underserved communities. Originally planned at roughly 40,000 square feet, the park was scaled back to 19,500 square feet following opposition from some residents, according to BKReader.
With approval from the PDC and Brooklyn Community Board 8 last month, the project will now enter the procurement phase over the coming months. Brooklyn Skate Garden officials are optimistic that groundbreaking and construction will begin in spring 2027 and continue into 2028.
“This is a defining moment for the Brooklyn Skate Garden at Mount Prospect Park and the New York City skateboarding community,” Loren Michelle, executive director of Brooklyn Skate Garden and the Pablo Ramirez Foundation, told BKReader.
“I couldn’t be prouder that all wheeled riders will finally have a world-class Skate Garden to call home that is safe and environmentally responsible.”
Prospects for the skate garden first surfaced in 2019 with an online petition and a successful 2021 participatory budgeting campaign led by the Pablo Ramirez Foundation, an organization honoring professional skater Pablo Ramirez. Hawk’s nonprofit, The Skatepark Project, is working with the foundation to develop the Brooklyn Skate Garden.
Officially announced in 2024, the project aims to create a safe and welcoming space for skaters, neighbors, and visitors while enhancing the park, which is located at one of the highest points in the borough, with new trees, native landscaping, seating, walkable pathways, and gathering spaces.
Located between Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Brooklyn Museum, the skatepark will be designed for all wheeled sports, including BMX biking, rollerskating, and inline skating, as well as skateboarding.
The Parks Department says it will plant 19 new trees, along with additional shrubs and plantings, and implement a green infrastructure system to manage on-site drainage. The project will also include upgraded security lighting, pavement, and circulation pathways, as well as new drinking fountains and waste receptacles, BKReader reported.
According to NYC Parks, the skate garden will act as a “braid,” weaving together the park’s quiet, shady areas and more active, sunny sections. It will also introduce a “ribbon” of flowering trees through the center of the garden, building on existing plantings throughout the park.
While the project has backing from the Brooklyn skating community, some residents have opposed the plan due to concerns about its impact on the park and a lack of public input. F
Friends of Mount Prospect Park have argued that it would reduce green space and create a “heat island,” since much of the skatepark would be constructed from concrete.
As a result, the proposed park has been downsized by nearly half, from roughly 40,000 square feet to 19,500 square feet.
The Brooklyn Skate Garden will join several skateparks that have opened or are in the works in recent years. The three other skateparks included in The Skatepark Project are the Soundview Skatepark, which will replace a vacant asphalt roller rink in the Bronx’s Soundview Park, and redesigns of existing skateparks in the Bronx’s Allerton Park and Crown Heights’ Brower Park.
Since May 2023, the city has been gradually reopening and revitalizing the Brooklyn Banks skating and BMX hub beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in Chinatown.
A popular destination for skaters in the 1980s, it closed in 2010. Last June, the city reopened an additional two acres of the site, including a refurbished “Big Banks.”
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