Want to buy a skatepark? Calgary's mobile ramps are for sale

The City of Calgary is hoping someone can dust off its mobile skatepark equipment and make the ramps available to the public again.

The mobile skatepark program was cancelled in 2019 — when its operating budget was cut. Now, the city has five different mobile parks available for sale and are looking for not-for-profits or government groups to scoop up the ramps.

"We're hoping to get a good cross-section of different organizations, and they need to be non-profit or government agencies," Stephanie Won with Calgary Recreation said. "They also need to be interested in providing affordable, accessible wheeled sport opportunities for children and youth and families. So those are the organizations that we're looking for."

Won said preference will be given to groups within a 30-minute drive of Calgary.

The city has put up a request for proposals and groups can submit offers until the end of November.

"They're an excellent opportunity for children and families to learn how to skateboard and other world sports together," Won said. "So let's cross our fingers that we get lots of interest."

Mobile parks have a long history in Calgary

Every spring and summer, the city rotated the mobile skateboard parks throughout communities with little or no access to permanent parks.

Each location had staff on hand to supervise, along with scheduled lessons for little ones.

The program helped bring the sport closer to home for communities that may not have had access to bigger permanent parks. 

"It's sad to see the program go, but I'm glad that the city is taking it seriously and isn't just putting them into storage indefinitely," said Calgary Association of Skateboarding Enthusiasts director Jeff Hanson. "It would be great to see community associations and non-profits step up and, you know, take one of these skate parks under their wing and offer skateboarding to those communities in a similar fashion as the city has for two decades now."

The then city-run program started more than 20 years ago. Between the mid-1980s and 1990, three mobile ramps operated periodically as a grassroots, community-led way to give people better access to skateboard parks before Calgary had a single permanent park. 

Now, the city has 10 permanent sites.

Hanson said CASE can't afford to take on the parks, but are standing by to answer questions or lend a hand for whichever groups come forward. 

"We would be more than happy to chat with nonprofits that are considering these ramps, even just to answer questions about, you know, maintenance of the parks, what to do with them, programming, all those sorts of things," Hanson said. "We are all advocates for skateboarding and we just want to help the culture grow."