The new Jolie Crider 2.0 skate park officially opened to the public during a ribbon-cutting ceremony late Friday afternoon, a public celebration of two years of planning and months of construction for the new state-of-the-art architecturally significant facility.
Skateboarders from around Columbus, and even around the state, have been enjoying the new facility for weeks as the final touches were placed on the $400,000 project.
Jolie Crider 2.0 skate park was funded through private donations, capital funding from the parks department and grants, including city support and money from the Heritage Fund — the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County and the Columbus Parks Foundation.
Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop, Columbus Parks Director Mark Jones and several members of the skate park committee were among the speakers at the event, which attracted about 100 people to celebrate the official opening.
“(The new skate park) has already attracted attention throughout the city and various parts of the state,” Lienhoop said during the event. “I think really what it does is show what Columbus does well. We are able to collaborate.”
The new 12,000-square-foot concrete skate park replaced the 15,000-square-foot, mostly wooden skate park that had sustained considerable damage over the past 20 years, parks officials said.
The original Jolie Crider Memorial Skate Park was built in Clifty Park in 1999, the result of a dream that a group of skaters had to build a skate park in the city. The park is named in memory of Columbus North High School freshman Jolie Crider, who died at age 14 from bacterial meningitis on May 7, 1998.
For more on this story, including more photos, see Saturday’s Republic and therepublic.com.
