The Edmonton area has plenty of outdoor skate parks for bikers and skaters to use during the city's short summer.

But once the snow falls, save for shovelling off quarter-pipes or skating illegally inside parkades, bikers and skateboarders are left out in the cold.

Chris Hartwell is hoping to change that with The Boneyard Skatepark in Sherwood Park.

The Boneyard is an indoor skate park geared toward bikes, skateboards and scooters. The park, which is more than 7,000 sq. feet in size, will have all sorts of rails, pipes, transfers, boxes and gaps to skate, as well as a rental shop and a concession. It's expected to be open by March 2018.

Hartwell is raising a bit of money through a GoFundMe, but is putting most of his own money toward the venture.

The crew is putting in all sorts of rails, stairs, quarter-pipes and boxes into the park. (Chris Hartwell/Supplied)

Hartwell first thought of the idea while talking to his son, Berg, who said he wanted to own a skateboard shop when he was older.

Hartwell wanted to own his own business too at some point — and after years of taking Berg to the skate park and thinking about how they lacked a space to ride in the winter, he found he kept resorting back to the idea of an indoor skate park.

"I felt Sherwood Park was always lacking it," Hartwell told CBC's Radio Active Tuesday. At the time of initial planning, another indoor skate park, Ride 'N' Play, was open in Edmonton's west end.

That business ended up closing while Hartwell was planning his park. He said going through with the plan felt even more important after that.

"I don't think I understood how important it was until we actually did go ahead with the plan," he said.

"When I started getting feedback from the community — when there was a couple of shop owners that reached out to me, the comments that I got from kids — that's when I started to realize how important it was to the community."

Dream becomes reality

Hartwell isn't a skate park expert by any stretch. He owned a bike when he was young but didn't do any tricks on it. He had imagined he, Berg and his other son Breckin would design a park and they would hire a carpenter who could build it.

But then Hartwell met Matt Mastrovito, an Edmonton skater who has been in the sport for almost 30 years, who Hartwell said turned his desires into a reality.

"It was actually when I first met Matt that I went from just kind of thinking about it to realizing that this could actually work," Hartwell said. "He gave me the confidence to do it."

The crew, hard at work, building part of a half-pipe. (Chris Hartwell/Supplied)

Mastrovito, a trained carpenter, has been building ramps for years. He worked on some of the ramps in the Ride 'N' Play. He came up with the entire design for the park, and after a few tweaks, is now in the process of building it.

Mastrovito is well-known in the local skateboarding community and was a sponsored skater. When other skaters and those involved in the larger BMX and skateboarding communities heard he was involved, they threw their support behind the park.

Hartwell expects the park will open in March. And though he's not sure about pricing yet, he said he's trying to keep it as affordable as possible. He doesn't expect to make a lot of money off this venture — just enough to support his family — and hopes it will double as a place for them to spend their time.

His son Breckin gave up biking a little while ago but is thinking of picking up his bike again because of the park.

Hartwell wants to provide the space for kids like Breckin, who may have given up the sport because of the outdoor limitations.

"I don't think I realized how much kids missed it, how much kids needed it," he said. "I hope they feel like they're not left out."

Listen to Radio Active with host Portia Clark, weekday afternoons on CBC Radio One, 93.9 FM/740 AM in Edmonton. Follow the show on Twitter: @CBCRadioActive.