Transforming a brownfield site into an authentic downtown plaza that is also a skate park

Encinitas Community Plaza and Skate Park

This “Wheel Friendly” plaza is the entryway to the 44-acre (17.8-hectare) community park and the city’s first multi-purpose skate park. Since communities are all different, public input is essential to each project, and our public meetings here led to this very unique park design.

The community wanted the former brownfield site to resemble an authentic urban plaza, reflecting the city’s artistic culture. It had to be a multi-use park, pedestrian friendly, and ADA accessible. That’s just what we did—using colors and a sunburst paving pattern to reflect the local context as well as creating an urban plaza with specially designed planters, ramps, and platform areas with room for pedestrians, spectators, and skateboarders.

But that’s not all. We also had meetings with a skate park core focus group, comprised of top skateboarding professionals, the media, and industry. The community wanted the park to include authentic skate park elements. Balancing this request with park aesthetics, we designed a separate bowl for skateboarders. Because of our outreach, the project has support from the Tony Hawk Foundation and several skateboarding businesses.