Davis Skate Park Reopens Next Month With New Bowls After $1.2M Rebuild

Skaters in Davis will get their concrete back next month. The Davis Community Park skate park, closed since March for a $1.2 million overhaul, is set to reopen on September 18 with a redesigned flow bowl, snake run, rails, ledges, stairs and other features built to serve everyone from beginners to seasoned riders.

The city will mark the reopening with a ribbon-cutting event from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Davis Community Park, featuring vendors, music and merchandise, according to the Sacramento Bee. The City of Davis has described the project as a true community build, and city officials say the new layout is designed for skaters of all ages and skill levels. The original park opened more than three decades ago, first built in 1993 for skateboarding and inline skating before a 1995 expansion added concrete and fencing across an 11,000-square-foot footprint, according to the City of Davis.

A Multi-Year Path to a New Bowl

The rebuild traces back to May 2024, when the city formally kicked off the replacement project under capital improvement number ET0027, requiring design-build teams to have completed at least three skate parks within the prior five years before they could even bid. The city finalized the design with Grindline Skateparks in February, after selecting the firm over two other bidders, per the Sacramento Bee. Heavy demolition of the aging facility began in April, prompting a temporary closure of the adjacent bike path connecting from F Street for construction safety.

Seattle-based Grindline, co-founded in 2002 by skater and concrete artisan Mark Hubbard, grew out of Pacific Northwest DIY skatepark building in the late 1990s into an international design-build operation that has now designed and built more than 350 skate parks worldwide over the past 30 years. The renovation was paid for through a mix of capital improvement funds, park impact fees and community fundraising. Construction will continue even after the September reopening, with landscaping work planned for November.

Budget Adjustments Behind the Scenes

Getting to the $1.2 million figure wasn't entirely smooth. City staff and Grindline adjusted the project's scope in late 2025 after initial cost estimates ran higher than the city's original roughly $1 million baseline budget, prompting staff to request additional Park Impact Fee funding from the City Council in December 2025 to close the gap. The skate park work moved forward under City Manager Daryel Dunston, who took over executive leadership of Davis municipal operations in September 2025 following a unanimous council vote.

The skate park sits within a broader set of upgrades underway at Davis Community Park, 203 East Fourteenth Street, which also houses athletic fields, tennis courts and a pool complex. The park's central restroom facility recently underwent its own revitalization as part of the same campus of investments. Once landscaping wraps in November, the full site will reflect years of layered municipal work rather than a single isolated project.

Public Art Meets Public Recreation

The skate park's reopening isn't just about concrete and rails. On July 15, the city's Civic Arts Advisory Board issued a request for qualifications offering up to $28,000 for an artist to design a permanent ceramic, glass or tile mosaic across 23 step risers leading down into the park. City art officials chose the ceramic mosaic medium specifically to nod to UC Davis's role as the birthplace of the 1960s West Coast Funk Art movement, a legacy that has made ceramic mosaic public art common throughout the city. Artist applications close October 1, with installation planned once skate park construction is fully complete.

The $1.2 million investment moved forward even as the Davis City Council worked through tighter municipal finances elsewhere. In May, the council approved $1.4 million in General Fund spending reductions to narrow a structural deficit, according to a city staff report. Capital projects like the skate park rely on dedicated impact fees and improvement funds rather than General Fund dollars, which allowed the renovation to stay on schedule despite the belt-tightening elsewhere in the budget.

Once it reopens, the skate park will be open from dawn to dusk every day, free for the community that watched the decades-old facility come down and rebuild itself into something new. The September 18 celebration will give skaters and neighbors their first real look at the finished bowls and rails, even as crews continue smaller finishing touches around the site into the fall.