Camp Washington's New Skatepark Opens With Cheese Coney Ramp, Free Coneys Thursday

Skaters got an early look at Cincinnati's newest recreational landmark this week, rolling through a brand-new concrete skatepark in Camp Washington ahead of its official debut. The 15,000-square-foot park, built on Stock Avenue, features a ramp shaped like a cheese coney and another paying tribute to the Cincinnati Reds, and it opens to the public Thursday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The grand opening, scheduled from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, August 27, will include official remarks, a ribbon-cutting, an open skate session, and complimentary cheese coneys provided directly by Camp Washington Chili, according to the Cincinnati Recreation Commission. Skaters were already trying out the park Tuesday, as reported by WKRC, giving the community a preview before the formal handover to the public park system.

Cincinnati's First Full-Scale Concrete Park

The Camp Washington site marks the first full-scale public concrete skatepark built within Cincinnati city limits. Before now, local skaters had only a tiny skate spot in Lower Price Hill or had to travel to suburban locations outside the city, according to WVXU, and advocates noted that many urban youth lacked cars to make that trip. Located at 1201 Stock Avenue, the park is integrated into a broader municipal recreation hub alongside a public swimming pool, a new playground, and repaved basketball courts operated by the Cincinnati Recreation Commission, as detailed by Cincinnati Magazine.

City leaders including Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval and Cincinnati Recreation Commission Director Daniel Betts broke ground on the project on April 3, 2026. At the groundbreaking, Pureval said resident input had convinced him of the project's potential for urban placemaking, per the same WVXU account. That means the park went from broken ground to finished concrete in under five months.

Four Years of Grassroots Push

Getting to that groundbreaking took years of organizing. The grassroots group Cincinnati Skatepark Project, founded in 2022 by Evan Walker and co-led by Gabrielle Larkin, spent four years pushing city leadership to authorize and fund a dedicated public skate park, according to CityBeat. The group ran community outreach and design workshops to demonstrate resident demand to city officials.

Design and construction fell to Hunger Skateparks, an Indiana-based, skateboarder-owned firm co-founded by Bart Smith that has built more than 60 skateparks worldwide, per Cincinnati Magazine. The firm worked directly with local skaters during community design sessions to shape the layout, and the site itself was chosen in part because it offered flat, underutilized land near bike lanes, bus routes, and the Interstate 75 Hopple Street exit.

Bowls, Rails and a Cheese Coney Homage

Beyond the coney-shaped and Reds-themed ramps, the park features a concrete bowl, rails, hips, funboxes, and hidden easter eggs, according to the Cincinnati Recreation Commission. It was built to welcome all non-motorized wheels, including BMX bikes, rollerblades, quad skates, and scooters, with features designed to appeal to beginners and advanced skaters alike.

The coney-shaped ramp is a nod to Camp Washington Chili, a neighborhood landmark founded in 1940 that serves more than 1,000 cheese coneys daily. The restaurant received a James Beard Foundation America's Classics award in 2000, making it Cincinnati's only recipient of that honor, according to WVXU. Hoodline covered the neighborhood's deeper roots — its military and stockyard origins — in an earlier story on the area's community events.

Funding and What Comes Next

Financing for the skatepark came together through municipal funding from the City of Cincinnati, a $300,000 grant allocation processed through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and private donations raised by local advocates, per WVXU's earlier reporting on the project's funding model.

The Camp Washington park is intended as only the first phase of a much larger vision. The Cincinnati Skatepark Project's long-term master plan envisions a network of five full-scale skateparks across the city, connected by smaller neighborhood skate spots called skatedots, according to Cincinnati Magazine. The advocacy group has said it wants skate spots to become as accessible across Cincinnati as neighborhood basketball courts, meaning Thursday's ribbon-cutting is likely just the start of a longer citywide build-out.