$1.14 Million Skate Park Coming to 19th street at OMNI

(As reported by Adam Mizrahi of Urban City Architecture)
A new skate park is coming to “passive Biscayne Park” (I don’t know if you can really call this patch of grass a park) – making this the first public skate park in the City of Miami. Located at 150 NE 19th St in Miami the funding, estimated at just over a million dollars, has already been approved by commissioners.
As Downtown has grown and people have begun to move in there has been a sharp increase in the number of kids skating through Brickell and Downtown. Every day I see groups (5-30) of kids skating around the corporate plazas and parks of the area. Providing a public, safe, and creative urban space for them is a great idea! What currently is a rather drab and mediocre area of town will get a rather interesting and unique attraction that many people are sure to visit — even those from outside downtown.
Furthermore, this skate park will serve as another attraction for Downtown Miami — meaning this will be another reason to move to downtown and the surrounding areas! A part of town that now lacks enough pedestrians and “eyes on the street” to make the area feel safe (especially at night) will get a valid activity that will have various groups of people out on the streets. This is not just another passive park — it will be an active, unique, and diverse park that will breathe life into the urban fabric. Yet another (interesting I must say) piece of the city is coming together.
As residents continue to move in this trend should continue. New residents moving in will create more demand — just as kids skating in the streets has created a market for a skate park other needs must be fulfilled. Can anyone say diner, bookstore, or movie theater?
Also interesting is the fact that the skate park will be next to the old City of Miami graveyard. While some have voice objections – I think it is quite interesting and rather nice to have a cemetary next to a park — even if it is a skate park. Cities must encourage the diversity, mixing, and varied interactions that make cities great. In San Francisco, the Mission Dolores graveyard is directly next to and in plain sight of the elementary school playground and basketball courts.
In my opinion, within a dense urban environment kids skating next to a graveyard is perfectly acceptable and rather poetic (if I may say). These kinds of interesting urban interactions are what makes dense cities interesting incubators of human diversity, drama, and spontaneity.
For more information, the Biscayne Times has a wonderful article on the story.