The Kings Highway DIY project in St Louis is scheduled to be torn down within a year as the 76 year old bridge overhead is being demolished. KHVT (Kingshighway Vigilante Transitions 501c3) organizers are working with the city to fundraise and sanction the first public free skatepark in the city. To ensure that the skateboarders of St. Louis will still have a place to skate, KHVT must act quickly. We are working closely with St. Louis City’s Land Re-utilization Authority (LRA) to find small, unused city owned properties to be transformed into free, public “skate gardens.” As of now, KHVT is $33,000 short of the $50k they need to build this first spot. And that’s where the Kickstarter campaign comes in.

Evergreen Skateparks recently broke ground on a 4500 square foot skatepark in Happy Valley, Oregon. I can’t find a design for this anywhere, and most of the pictures that turn up in a Google Image search are old concepts attributed to Newline that appeared here on S&A back in 2009. Newline still has revised plans on their website. What happened is anyone’s guess, but Oregonians are happy to keep it local.

Bradenton, Florida has a relatively new Team Pain skatepark on the riverwalk. It’s mostly waist high or under, with the exception of a 10ft or so vert wall on one end of the park and a large bowl on the opposite. The park is long and narrow, dissected in the middle by an overhead highway bridge that crosses the river. As with Louisville, KY, it’s more or less across the street from the hospital. I’m not sure if they do that on purpose or not. It’s on a stretch of land that would otherwise most likely be vacant, which means plenty of room for expansion! The non-skating locals I spoke with are very pleased with it, and consider it a destination worth hanging out at just to watch and enjoy the location. More photos and a video skate through after the jump.

Phase one of Gold Hill, Oregon’s new skatepark in memory of Tom Fish, has been completed. It’s a Dreamland project. It looks fully rideable now, but of course the grand opening is set for April 2nd. [Source: ABC KDRV ]

The new skatepark at Schiffler Park in Beavertron, Oregon is officially open. Video barge courtesy of K.C. after the jump. – Thanks to Mike Estes for the photos.

About a million years ago (10 or so, actually) I did a write up of concrete skateparks in the greater Chicagoland area for a pre-blog print issue of S&A. It was pretty dismal, especially coming from a Northwest perspective. In most cases the design or finish were flawed, often times both. Most spots weren’t built by actual skatepark builders. Some have expansion joints where the transition meets the flat, filled with whatever soft goo they use on sidewalks. Some even have brushed cement. That’s not to say you couldn’t have fun in those parks, because you are skateboarding after all. Since that time, Chicago got an adequate, professional, but not especially exciting park on Wilson, plus a prefab junker on Logan, and think some other satellite parks in the burbs, but again, nothing to write home about. Who knows, (I don’t) maybe there are a other new parks in the area that I don’t know about. Admittedly, I’m going on old information, although I did hit some more suburban spots in 2009. This new skatepark in Villa Park by Portland’s Evergreen Skateparks has a small-ish footprint, so it’s kind of hard to dazzle, but still it’s got to be a…

Well, the skatepark isn’t quite funded yet, but the web site is up.

North Korea has it’s first skatepark, and boy does it look… fun? Apparently, red and blue tracksuits are mandatory. Enjoy the weird, depressing, and joyless “Wellness Center” video after the jump. [Source: Good] – Thanks to Mac for the tip.

Roadside advertisement for a new skatepark in Lima, Peru, or technically San Borja? I’m not even gonna front on my south american geography. There’s not much out there about this park, and non of which I can actually read. I did find some photos at Radar Skate, and a few more at SkateparksPeru.com. Apparently Peru has 42 skateparks already, who knew? It’s scheduled to open this month. Maybe it’s open now. Who built it? Doctor Skatepark, the same guy behind that glow in the dark park in France. [Photo: Seth Levy]

In some sort of bizarre twist of fate, the city of Eugene, Oregon found itself with a giant surplus of cash and decided to fund floundering skatepark efforts. Sk8Eugene had this to say: In a monumental unanimous decision, the Eugene City Council today voted 8-0 in favor of endorsing the Eugene Parks Department’s recent proposal to allocate additional SDC (Systems Development Charge) funds for the development and construction of the WJ Skatepark in order to begin construction of the ENTIRE proposed skatepark in 2013. Just as importantly, the Parks proposal does not require additional private fundraising for near term ongoing maintenance. Although a continued capital private fundraising campaign will be necessary and ongoing, the Eugene Parks Foundation has stepped up to spearhead these additional private fundraising efforts. Those giant pylons in the design sketch above are actually piers supporting an overhead highway. Fly-throughs of the proposed Dreamland park design can be found here. – Thanks to Sarib and Andrew for the tip.