New Heritage Skate Park in St Cloud Has Been a Big Hit

It’s a Friday evening in early October in St. Cloud, Minnesota. It’s unseasonably warm, with temps in the low 80’s. Records were close to being broken. With weather like that, it’s a perfect day, and possibly the last perfect day to get some boarding in at St. Cloud’s new skate park.

If you’ve driven past Costco anytime this summer, you’ve probably seen all the activity. From young kids to old school skateboarders just hanging on to those days, the skate park seems extremely popular.

Almost every time I went to Costco, I saw it was busy. So I decided to stop by and get a closer look and see what some people thought about it.

Joseph from St. Cloud, who is one of the “old school” skaters and has been at it for 21 years, said, “It’s a great place to learn new tricks.” Is there a part of the park that you wouldn’t go near? “The stairs,” he said, “I’m too old for that.”

But it’s not just boarders, riders, and “just hang around people.” There are also parents as well. Judy drives her kids all the way from Royalton. For a while, they were coming about once a week. Why so often? She said, “It’s something for the kids to do, and they enjoy it.”

When it was announced that a new Costco would be built in St. Cloud and that the location chosen was Heritage Park, people let their opinions be known.

Feelings ranged from expressing absolute joy that a Costco was finally coming -- to absolute anger that Heritage Park was being torn down to do it. Others, like our city's youth, expressed concern over the removal of the skate park. Many of the skaters that frequented the park even put together a video expressing their feelings about it.

That was back in the spring of 2018. Fast-forward two years, and those skaters got a new Heritage Park Skate Plaza. They had to suffer for two years, but in the end, they got one the is bigger and better than its predecessor.