If you’re coming from the email, scroll down to the break (----) to find out what happened next with Poe Mill.
A few weeks ago, while driving home from work (and passing Blazer skate shop) I wondered what was up with Greenville’s skate scene. After some research, it turns out Blazer skate shop has been around since 1984, and at its Lauren’s Road location since 2001. Clearly skaters are buying gear and boards, but where are they riding?
A history of Greenville’s skate scene
Prior to 2012, there were two privately owned skate parks in Greenville and one make-shift public park:
- No Name Skate Park off of Roper Mountain Rd.
- Skate Park of Greenville aka S.P.O.G.
- Poe Mill
In 2009, Greenville Redevelopment Authority worked with Clemson Architecture students to design what a new park on the Poe Mill site would look like, and even purchased the land, allowing skaters to build their own ramps. More on this later.
In 2012, No Name Skate Park owners closed their doors due to economic hardships, and not too long after, S.P.O.G. closed their doors as well (2014~).
August, 2015: The Children’s Museum of the Upstate paired up with the Smithsonian as a part of their Innoskate program. Goaled with teaching the community about skateboarding and showing off the sport with an event right in front of the museum. The event brought in pro skaters, local skateboarders, and they even created a skatepark right in front of the museum for the day.
Skaters gonna skate
So, that leaves Poe Mill. Once a thriving textile mill (in service from 1896 – 1977), it burnt down in 2003 and became a makeshift skatepark by local skaters as early as 2004. It’s pretty much been that way up until the Greenville Redevelopment Authority purchased the land in 2010 and sparked the conversation for a larger scale park on the site.
There was even a huge party the night of the Innoskate event that gained the attention of two huge skate groups; Street League and the Tony Hawk Foundation. This also got Greenville County Rec and the folks over at Blazer skate shop discussing ideas to make the Poe Mill site into a legit wheel park.
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Turns out skate parks are expensive.
In 2016, the discussion took the next step by evaluating what it would take to make this plot of land a legit wheel park.
- First, remediation of the Poe Mill site must happen before a new park could be built (due to contaminants such as metals and polynuclear aromatic compounds being found in the rubble). This means they need to add three feet of dirt to any area not currently covered by concrete. Fortunately, due to the growth of Greenville, many developers have been dumping their excess dirt at the site, helping cut major costs.
- Next, the groups had to round up some skate park gurus to figure out what it would cost to take on such a venture. As we mentioned before, some big names got involved, like Street League and the Tony Hawk Foundation.
- Finally, a rough figure of $2.5M to complete such a project was thrown around, which the Greenville County Recreation department simply can’t fund themselves (for reference, Charleston’s new SK8 cost $4.8M).
Today, without an outside investor, there simply aren’t enough funds to take on a project such as this. However, the skate community isn’t letting it get them down as they continue to build makeshift ramps and rails at the Poe Mill site under the Greenville Redevelopment Authorities permission.
Blazer skate shop even received a recent donation of tools from Techtronic Industries in Anderson (who manufactures Ryobi tools) so that they can continue to build out the makeshift park.
Skate on, Greenville.
– Logan
