Homestead Skate Park was the place to be Monday night, with standing room only around the concrete facility in Chapel Hill as community members gathered from a demo by a team of professional skaters signed to Nike. Watching from the rims of ramps and the nearby bleachers, people took videos and cheered the skaters on as they performed tricks while testing the limits of the recently rebuilt park.
While the local skateboarders and riders have been using the updated amenity since December, the Town of Chapel Hill held its official grand opening ceremony for the park on Monday to help celebrate the site’s renovation completed over last fall. The event also served as a chance to recognize the determination and patience of the community to see a beloved space become new again.
Chapel Hill resident Damon Lubbers said the skate park is “home away from home” for him since moving to town more than a decade ago. He said seeing skaters of the Nike pro team’s quality in the Homestead Skate Park – as well as the gathered crowd – was exciting.
“I’m stoked to see so many people – familiar faces, new people,” Lubbers told Chapelboro. “It’s cool to see Nike pros out here, especially Casper Brooker, a pro from London. It’s cool to see Chapel Hill getting love.
“It definitely feels like we’re more looked at and people are more thinking of our needs instead of just being, like, ‘Here you go, put ‘em in a corner,’” he added. “Now we’ve got a nice place to be… good lights, a good crowd [today]. Overall, hyped on the whole situation.”
Professional skater Casper Brooker rolls through the center of the Homestead Skate Park on Monday, Apr. 6, 2026. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
That sense of recognition comes after the local skating community advocated tirelessly for years to improve the amenity in Homestead Park. The original design was built in 1999 and featured a blend of wooden ramps and concrete that got beat up over time by regular use and weather. Nails from makeshift repairs by the skaters themselves would stick up and could ruin a ride. Lubbers described it as challenging and painful to skate but added “it was still home – we all loved it and cherished it.
“That’s why,” he said, “it looks almost identical to how it was before.”
While initially privately managed, the town government took over the park in the mid-2000s. But funding any replacement work at Homestead was low on the priority list. Longtime Chapel Hillian and skater Ricky Covach said there was a disconnect at the time between the local government and the skating community. Having skated at the Chapel Hill park since it was first constructed, he remembered trying to keep it together while starting renewed discussions with the town.
“We would struggle to replace little pieces of wood here and there, just struggling to keep that in shape for many, many years,” Covach recounted. “So yeah, this [renovation] was something that would’ve been a fantasy or [not feasible] because we’ll never have that much budget or support from the town. To see it now, it’s a totally unexpected dream come true… a dream we never thought was achievable, but now it’s here.”
That budget and redesign picked up steam in the early 2020s, in part because of the failing structure of the old park design. But it also became an issue heard more frequently at Chapel Hill Town Council meetings thanks to then-Council Member Adam Searing. A key component of Searing’s policy platform was more funding for Chapel Hill’s Parks and Recreation facilities and sites – and that included refurbishing the Homestead Skate Park where he spent hours upon hours with his son, a BMX rider who used the old park.
Eventually, through a renewed relationship between the skaters, town council and town staff, the project got rolling. Chapel Hill partnered with 5th Pocket Stakeparks to create a new design and allocated a mix of its Penny for Parks tax revenue with federal funding to deliver the upgrades. The result was, as Lubbers and Covach pointed out, keeping the design of the original park while making it all out of reinforced concrete and adding a handful of street features for tricks.
While watching the action on Monday, Searing said – like the skaters – there were some days when he felt skeptical he would ever see the skate park get renovated.
“In Chapel Hill, even a project that’s relatively small can consume a lot of oxygen and debate,” he said with a laugh. “But I think the most important thing was we actually got a product that people like, and I think we did in the end.
“The original process was just to re-do this section,” Searing added, “and the town was able to find a little bit more money to put in the [smaller] bowl below this [main section]. When you expand the park like that, you get an exponential upgrade in the quality – so I’m really glad the town was able to do that.”
Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Director Atuya Cornwell was there to help with the execution of the party and check out the skating team. He said he is excited to be able to use Homestead Skate Park for more programming and events like Monday’s celebration now that the area is upgraded. Since he oversees the town’s parks and amenities, Cornwell is accustomed to knowing the many sports and recreational activities community members care about. But after managing a skate park in Maryland as part of his prior parks and rec job, he added he knows how special the skateboarding community’s passion is – especially around historic park and advocating for keeping the original design.
“Everybody has such a unique perspective from a community standpoint, and skaters, cyclists, roller-skating..everything that comes out here. It’s really good to be a part of it, and I’ve been enjoying coming out since it’s been officially open…just seeing the people out here enjoying themselves.”
Covach said his first drop into the renovated Homestead Skate Park back in December felt surreal. His favorite new feature is one he helped come up with: a ledge styled and painted to look like a brick wall that’s outside the Chapel Hill High School auditorium.
“We wanted to pay tribute to something that was a local skateboarding spot out in the streets that people would recognize, and it’d be a way to honor the local community and tie in some of the other places that we like to skate in Chapel Hill. And so, we made it concrete instead brick – it looks like brick, but [the concrete] will help it survive longer. And it’s way wider than the original one at the auditorium, so we can kind of made it even better than the original.”
Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation’s official hours at the Homestead Skate Park are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, with the lights around the amenity turning on at sunset.
Featured photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.
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