PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — For Austin Hendrickson, there’s something freeing about skating through the streets of his hometown with wind at his back, familiar scenes buzzing by, and maybe a friend by his side.
Growing up though, Hendrickson said the hobby wasn’t always welcomed.
It wasn’t until about six years ago, when the city, looking for a way to invest in its youth, turned to him and other skateboard enthusiasts and asked for help designing a skatepark.
Hendrickson is a skate instructor now, teaching mostly at Boy Scout camps in West Virginia or Pennsylvania.
He said he never really got a chance to look for students in his hometown for a simple reason: there aren’t many places to skate.
“Right now, all we really have are like parking lots and then like some smooth streets here and there and then like some churches are alright with us using their facilities,” he said.
By the end of the year, that should change.
Contractors are nearing completion on a skatepark on the west end of town, the culmination of a more than six-year effort from the Portsmouth Skatepark Committee promising to “Make Portsmouth Skate Again.”
There has been talk of building a facility for skateboarding has been underway in the city for years, according to Sean Dunne, a Portsmouth city councilman and sociology professor at Shawnee State University. It got serious when the university’s sociology club presented him with their idea that they took it to the city.
“Not everyone is gonna be the captain of a certain sports team or be the president of their glee club and we want to provide as many ways that they can form positive identities in their activities in their youth and skating is one of those things that you can do in your youth that can continue throughout your life,” he said.
Soon after, Dunne started a campaign for city council, promising to get the project off the ground.
“They didn’t vote for me, they voted for a skatepark,” he said.
The effort came with some unexpected delays.
To get the project inside the Riverside city’s flood wall, Dunne said the city had to get approval from the Army Corps of Engineers, a process significantly slowed during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
What did not slow down, though, was the momentum from the Portsmouth Skatepark Committee
Over the past six years, they’ve worked together to help fundraise and apply for grants to help make the roughly $300,000 project possible.
“Essentially, what happened was a bunch of different groups came together to make this happen,” Dunne said.
Once built, the skatepark will be the only facility of its kind for 100 miles, though it’s just a small part of citywide efforts to improve access to outdoor recreation.
On Nov. 3, Portsmouth opened a multi-use path to allow cyclists and pedestrians easy access to get across the city, and in late October, a Pump Track opened just west of town for BMX riders.
Hendrickson believes all these efforts are great ways to show teenagers and young adults that the city is investing in them, and he hopes it helps locals build communities.
“I wouldn’t have met a lot of people and wouldn’t have had so many of these doors opened for me and these opportunities in my life had it not been for skateboarding.”
An early supporter of the project and a member of the skatepark committee, Hendrickson said he’s looking forward to helping train the next generation of Portsmouth skaters who will put the park to use.
“We just enjoy our sport and we want to see other people enjoy our sport and it will really open up a lot of opportunities for a lot of people here,” he said. “We want the whole community to enjoy that.”
The contractors, Spohn Ranch Skateparks, expect to finish construction by the end of 2021.