MANSFIELD — A Skate Ohio pop-up skate park was a success five months ago in Maple Lake Park.
Now the Mansfield-based organization — armed with a $12,000 donation and the cooperation of the City of Mansfield — plans to return with something more permanent on a portion of the tennis courts at the park along Arlington Avenue.
“We are going to put a ‘micro park’ on the same tennis courts we did the pop-up event on,” Skate Ohio Vice President Adam McElroy said in announcing the grant from comedian Dan Cummings and his Bad Magic Productions.
McElroy said Cummings, based in Idaho, has been a favorite of his and Skate Ohio President B.J. Price.
“Every month, they donate to a non-profit or charity,” McElroy said. “We reached out to them and said we would like to be a recipient. Last week, they called us back and said they were down with helping us.”
“It will be like a full-fledged skate park, just a little bit smaller,” he said, indicating it would include ramps, border pipes, rails and boxes.
“Our goal was about $10,000 and we can get a lot done with that through the connections and the wonderful people in town who have helped us before. We would accept more donations, for sure,” McElroy said.
The park will be dubbed “Bad Magic Skatepark” and Cummings and his wife, Lynze, may come to Mansfield for the eventual ribbon cutting, according to McElroy.
Louis Andres, the city’s public works director, said the pop-up park in May was well received.
“We wanted to try it out and evaluate afterward. It went well, so we said, ‘Let’s put a mini one there and we will be a partner’ if you can get money … a sponsor,” Andres said.
He said the city would assist by repairing a fence around the courts and fixing up the parking lot.
“But we would have done that anyway,” he said. “We will do (financial) matching up to a certain amount. Details have not been finalized.
“We are willing to host and put in some resources to get it started, using what city resources we can to help make it a success,” Andres said.
Skate Ohio’s plan is to put “mini skate parks” in various parks around the city.
“People have a problem with transportation and not everyone can easily get to Liberty Park,” Price said, referring to the home of the Liberty DIY skatepark.
“This is not affiliated with the Liberty DIY project. They are working hard and doing their own thing in that park and it’s great,” Price said. “We support them, as they do us. We want to make sure they continue to get credit for all the work they are putting in out there.
“We want to build a ‘micro park’ system for Mansfield. More small parks means more people will have access to something,” he said.
The plan is for the park to be designed over the next few months and built by the second quarter of 2026, according to McElroy.
