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.
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"(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.
Shayla Holtkamp, Crider’s mother, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday and received a commemorative skateboard deck with her daughter’s name on it.
"When you lose a child, your biggest fear is that they’ll be forgotten, and that has never happened in this community," Holtkamp said after the ceremony. "This is huge. Her memory goes on. I get to say her name, people hear about her. It’s such a comfort to me. It’s comforting and it’s just the greatest thing. There’s nothing better than having her memory go on, especially in a place like this where a lot of kids come and have fun and they’re active and can be crazy like she was and full of life. It just warms my heart."
The new skate park includes a sign that is around 15-feet-tall that was installed on Friday paying tribute to Crider’s life. The sign includes information about the project’s donors, the skate park’s architect and the construction team.
During the past 20 years, the original skate park was a city attraction for thousands of local skaters, and the newly-built skate park is already seeing out-of-city and out-of-state visitors, Jones said.
"We’re seeing it already," Jones said after the ceremony. "There are groups from Indianapolis that come every weekend. We’ve got large groups from Louisville (Kentucky) that are coming. In the skating world and community, the word is out and they’re starting to flock to this location."
The new skate park was built by Hunger Skateparks, a Bloomington-based design and construction firm, and was designed by Janne Saario, an architect from Helsinki, Finland.
This project is Saario’s first skate park to debut in the United States, which has contributed to its attraction of local, state and out-of-state groups. Saario has developed several skate parks in Europe.
“It was a collaboration with several different groups to put together a design that was first in class,” said Chip Orben, president of the Columbus Park Foundation, in an earlier interview. “We’re blessed to live in a community that is diverse in what they enjoy to do. We’re glad to be able to provide assistance in raising those funds and providing this new skate park for all to enjoy.”
The park is designed into three sections that flow together seamlessly, Hunger Skateparks officials said.
Using about 2,500 square-feet of the former skate park’s wood slab, the entrance section is also equipped with all new flat-ground features flanked with a new bank to cub and quarter pipe, the developer said.
The middle section had mixed transitions and street features, including a rainbow rail and quarter, a kong wall, jumps, bank to rails, hubbas and ledges with three elevation changes.
The third section is a long ditch-like bowl with two minis of different heights, extension and a large transfer into a transition hip area that flows riders back into the other two sections of the park.
"This is a popular place," Lienhoop said. "This is a wonderful way for us to remember Jolie and what she added to the community in the time that she was here."
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To learn more about the Jolie Crider Memorial Skate Park, visit columbusparkfoundation.org/projects.
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Visit jannesaario.com for more information about Janne Saario, an architect from Finland who designed the new Columbus skate park called Jolie Crider 2.0.
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