Skaters, bikers try park out
By Teresa Sargeant
Reporter
The grand opening of the new Apopka Action Sports Park drew skateboarders and BMX bikers from the area, including the Schwindler family.
Beata Schwindler was with her husband Jesse Schwindler and their 3-year-old daughter Gia, who took her pink scooter for a ride at the Saturday, March 22, grand opening of the park, which was built next to the Fran Carlton Center.
Beata Schwindler didn’t learn about the skate park until she noticed its construction during her daily commute. She told her husband about the park, then they learned more about the facility on Facebook.
“This is great, because I heard my husband saying when he was little, he grew up in New York, and they didn’t have too much opportunities to use, like, actually a professional or a good quality skateboarding place. “They built their own things,” Schwindler said. “So, for us to have it two minutes from our house is a great thing, and especially that there’s a playground here, so the little ones can play too. I love that for the kids, mainly the ones who can’t really go to Disney or Universal all the time or the beach.”
At the Apopka Action Sports Park grand opening, Mayor Bryan Nelson called the fruition of the Apopka Action Sports Park a “pretty long process” stretching back to when John Land was still mayor.
Over the next year, old sheds near the Fran Carlton Center will get torn down and replaced by a 30-plus-space parking lot for the skate park and pump track, and for the bigger events at Fran Carlton, Nelson said. A double-to-triple-sized larger shed with a small office will then be constructed next to the Edgewood-Greenwood Cemetery and Doctors’ Dog Park.
Following the Jan. 24 groundbreaking, it took just six weeks to build the $500,000 Apopka Action Sports Park, which is an Apopka Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) project.
Funded by the tax increment fund revenue from city and Orange County governments, the Apopka CRA focuses on improving the city’s downtown area, which includes historical landmarks, homes and commerce.
The park directly links with the West Orange Trail and includes a street-style skate park area with rails, gaps and banks and a bordering pump track for BMX bikers.
The American Ramp Company assisted in designing and building the Apopka Action Sports Park. For over two decades, the Joplin, Mo.-based company has constructed skate and bike parks across the United States and in 44 other countries.
The Apopka Chief is an award-winning weekly newspaper serving the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923.
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