St. Petersburg is aiming to become the region’s skateboarding destination by building a 32,000-square-foot skate park across Interstate 175 from Tropicana Field.
The Tampa Bay Times reports the City Council recently approved $1.6 of earmarked funds for parks and recreation uses. Officials hope to have a state-of-the-art facility open by winter 2016.
The city hopes it might be able to compete for national and international competitions.
For skateboarding enthusiasts, the city’s support is a big shift from the days when people were ticketed for riding boards on downtown sidewalks, forcing them to pay a fine before they could retrieve it from the bowels of the police headquarters.
