Ryan Patrick Hooper

Special to the Detroit Free Press

Tony Hawk is bringing a skate park to downtown Detroit.

The skateboarding legend is overseeing the design of the modular pocket park that initially will sit at the corner of Farmer and Monroe, one block northeast of Campus Martius. It's scheduled to open Aug. 16.

The Wayfinding skate park will not only be the first of its kind in downtown Detroit, it will also double as a performance space and public art installation featuring the work of acclaimed contemporary artist Ryan McGinness.

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The project is a partnership between contemporary art gallery Library Street Collective, real estate powerhouse Bedrock, the Quicken Loans family of companies and the Cranbrook Art Museum, which will host a new exhibit of McGinness’s work starting on Nov. 17 and oversee additional cultural programming at the skate park in collaboration with Library Street Collective.

The partners would not reveal the cost of the project.

Wayfinding will be a placeholder until Bedrock’s massive Monroe Block development breaks ground in the area, which is expected in January 2018. At that point, the modular design of the park will allow it to be moved to another part of the city.

The park will be free and open to the public. It will feature six skateable elements, as well as a viewing area for spectators. Construction of the 4,600-square-foot park will be overseen by George Leichtweis of local skate shop Modern Skate & Surf, a staple in metro Detroit’s skate scene since the 1970s.

“We’re literally building a skate park that would take months and months to build in less than a month’s time,” says Anthony Curis, founding partner of Library Street Collective.

“It’s a long time coming for Detroit to have a state-of-the-art skateboard park, and we are proud to partner with Tony Hawk and others to make it happen,” said Helen Johnson, Quicken Loans vice president of strategic investment.

In an interview with the Free Press, Hawk expressed his excitement about bringing skateboarding infrastructure to the city’s high-profile, central core.

“It was a great opportunity to get something in the downtown area that is a proper skate park,” says Hawk, who is undoubtedly the most influential skateboarder of all time. “This one is exciting, although it’s not our usual style of skate parks. At the same time, I want to support anything that is public and will be available for people to skate.”

Hawk says a modular park built above ground without permanent concrete infrastructure offers unique design challenges, but that the construction of modular skate ramps has advanced in the past decade. The 49-year-old pro skater says the park is a “well-rounded design” that caters to “all skill levels and all different types of skaters” within a relatively small space.

Hawk didn’t rule out the possibility of a more permanent skate park in Detroit’s near future.

“I appreciate that they’re putting this effort and funding behind it — that’s all amazing to me,” says Hawk. “At the same time, I would like to know that there is something of more permanence in Detroit.”

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Hawk’s affinity for Detroit has been well-documented over the past few years. In 2013, Hawk’s namesake foundation donated $30,000 to the Ride It Sculpture Park in Detroit. It's currently working on the final phase of construction there. Last year, Hawk and his wife purchased a 120-year-old home in the city’s Woodbridge neighborhood.

“The real deal is in Detroit,” says Hawk. “It’s such a DIY philosophy, which is exactly what skating is in tune with. Detroit is just hip without trying.”

Hawk says that he’s still miffed that the X Games passed on Detroit’s bid to host the extreme sports competition in 2013. “I’m still a little bitter that it hasn’t been here yet,” says Hawk, who says he didn’t participate as an announcer at the X Games last weekend in Minneapolis because of the Detroit snub.

A quick search through Instagram shows Hawk’s passion for Detroit is more than just lip service. Photos show him skating in Detroit, including a stop at the Wig, a skate park at the former Wigle Recreation Center in Midtown.

The DIY park was built by Community Push, a grassroots organization of skaters lead by Derrick Dykas whose aim is to build a stronger skateboarding community in the city. News of the Wayfinding project comes on the heels of news that the Wig is slated to be displaced by a $77-million mixed-use development known as “Midtown West” in 2018.

More recreation downtown

The Wayfinding skate park is bound by Randolph, Bates, Cadillac Square and Monroe. It will join an active downtown core that has expanded its free recreational offerings in recent years, adding public basketball courts and a faux beach to Campus Martius.

It’ll also bring yet another street art-style installation to downtown Detroit.

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McGinness plans to install up to 72 stylized street signs that play off the idea of “guiding people through a physical environment” in the same way traditional pedestrian signs do, but with a more artistic, interpretive approach.

McGinness dubbed the project Wayfinding with this mind — and applauded skateboarders for interpreting their urban environments in the same way.

“I thought it was appropriate because skateboarders will find their way through an urban environment by repurposing the architectural elements that they come across,” says McGinness. “Rails have a new use. Benches have a new use. Curbs have a new use.”

Few contemporary artists are as qualified as McGinness for such a project, as he grew up skateboarding in Virginia Beach in the late-1980s. Previous skate park-related projects have included installations for Museum of Modern Art in New York and Art Basel in Miami.

The physical iconography will be attached to the west-facing wall of the 106-year-old Albert Kahn-designed National Theatre and act as a backdrop for the park. The historic commission approved the installation on the property.

The Wayfinding installation and upcoming Cranbrook exhibit mark two massive, Michigan-based projects for McGinness. The Cranbrook exhibit, called “Studio Views,” will be an immersive and ambitious site-specific installation of 30 large-scale canvas paintings that take viewers into McGinness’ Manhattan studio. He’ll also utilize elements from Cranbrook’s vast archives.

Cranbrook Art Museum director Andrew Blauvelt says the McGinness exhibition was a catalyst for the skate park becoming a reality and an opportunity to connect with the city of Detroit.

“Detroit has really burst onto the contemporary cultural scene, so it just makes sense for us to be part of that experience,” says Blauvelt, who touted Cranbrook’s historic connection to the Motor City. “Recently, we’ve been amping up those efforts.”

When asked if Cranbrook had plans for a permanent location in Detroit, Blauvelt teased the possibility in the future.

“I wouldn’t rule out the possibility in the future of Cranbrook having a more permanent presence in the city of Detroit,” says Blauvelt. “It’s something we’ve been looking at.”

‘A lot of opportunity’

The Wayfinding skate park will be replaced by Bedrock’s Monroe Block development, a multimillion-dollar project that will span two blocks and include a 20-story commercial building and 16-story residential tower spanning 825,000-square-feet of space combined.

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A Bedrock representative says the company is committed to restoring the terracotta facade on the National Theatre, but stopped short of saying the rest of the building would be integrated into the new construction.

It’s unclear where the modular park will move once the Monroe Block development breaks ground, but Curis of Library Street Collective says the park and art installation will likely move together to a similar-sized area somewhere within city limits.

What the park lacks in permanent concrete installations — a preference for previous skate parks Hawk has overseen in the past — it makes up for with mobility and potential to be relocated elsewhere, Curis says.

“Although that site will be temporary, it actually offers a lot of opportunity to move the park in the future,” says Curis, who says sites could include an area near the current site downtown, a city park or inside of a building.

“Once that decision is made, it’ll be important to make sure that this skate park is going to a location that’s actually going to fit the needs of the community.”

Ryan Patrick Hooper is a freelance journalist and writer in Detroit. Follow him on Twitter.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly located the Ride It Sculpture Park. It is in Detroit.