Ground broken for new skatepark in Westport
Published 1:30 am Monday, July 13, 2026
A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Westport Community Skatepark on Friday.
The park will be located at 101 E Harms Drive, next to the Timberland Westport Library and near the Little League baseball field. Several business and community leaders attended the ceremony.
During opening remarks prior to putting shovels in the ground, organizer and the driving force behind the park, Darcia Davis, said, “The vision and efforts have always been driven by the love of the youth in our community, for the families in our community, and wanting more for the people to utilize, a free outdoor space.”
The park is being constructed by Grindline Skateparks out of Seattle. According to the company’s official website, Grindline provides “complete skatepark design and construction services, including site analysis, community outreach, conceptual design, cost estimation, construction documentation, and execution.” The total coast for the project is approximately $773,000.
Davis said it was important to create a space for kids who don’t participate in traditional stick-and-ball and other school or team sports. She hopes the park will attract more kids to the sport of skateboarding and that it could potentially host top skateboarding competitions.
“I thought it was super important. I worked at the school for years, and we lack facilities that lend to unorganized sports,” Davis said. “There’s absolutely nothing. We have a city park which is designed for children under eight.”
Davis said that construction would take roughly three to four months. She added that there were several funding sources for the project, including multiple grants.
“We applied for an RCO grant that was awarded at half a million dollars, Grays Harbor Community Foundation, I believe, awarded us $35,000, Willapa Enterprises, a ton of local businesses donated varying sums to make it happen,” Davis said. “I can’t even put it in to words to be honest, really excited; I feel like all our hard work is done, and now the hard work is on Grindline, and when they’re done with their job its going to be a beautiful, functional art facility for our community to enjoy.”
Davis also mentioned that Hana Perlee and Cory Beard of The Surf Shop did quite a bit of fundraising work applying for grants and accepting donations for the project.
The mayor of Westport, Ed Welter, said that more than $75,000 came in from private donations through fundraising and that he believed the city contributed approximately $150,000.
Welter echoed Davis’ sentiments regarding community impact.
“This is huge for the community. This has been a long, long time coming, even before this project began there was a skate park over by the old park in the city and it ended up getting taken down.” Welter said. “The surfing community has put in a lot of effort and time trying to figure out how to get organized and get a skatepark. I’m so grateful to the community donations, to the city for its support, Grindline for working with the city to get it all done.”
Welter concurred that a skatepark such as this would serve as an all-important “third space” for young people looking for somewhere to go and something to do other than home and school.
“This is going to be life-changing for a kid. There’s going to be some kid that doesn’t play football, doesn’t play basketball, doesn’t play baseball and needs somewhere to go with their time and energy and this is going to be a place for them,” Welter said. “I am looking forward to finding ways to create more of these spaces around here.”
Follow the skatepark’s progress here: https://www.facebook.com/westportcommunityskatepark
