San Pedro’s new skate plaza at Peck Park won’t open for another couple of weeks.

But that hasn’t stopped skaters from getting beyond the fencing to give the new attraction along Western Avenue a preliminary spin.

While the grand opening is set for 5:30 p.m. Aug. 15, skaters can’t seem to resist the temptation now that the plaza is finished, awaiting only some perimeter landscaping.

“They’re trying it out,” said Mark Mariscal, region superintendent with the Los Angeles’ Department of Recreation and Parks, who said park officials chased out about 20 skaters earlier this week.

But they were back within hours.

Because the plaza isn’t open yet, however, liability issues loom, leading park and police officials to adopt a more hard-line approach in the days to come. From now on, police will be citing skaters with fines.

City officials hope to resolve the matter by establishing an unofficial “soft” opening sometime before the Aug. 15 ceremony.

Andy Harris of the San Pedro Skatepark Association, said the eagerness is to be expected considering how long local skaters have lobbied for a facility at Peck Park. The idea was first floated some 15 years ago.

“That’s what they get for taking as long as they did,” said Harris, who served as an adviser on the design. “I don’t know what they would expect.”

The city finally began soliciting feedback on a skate park design in 2010.

With the strong backing of the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council and Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino, a groundbreaking for the $800,000 skate plaza was held in February 2013,with the anticipation that it could be completed by fall the same year.

Judging by the growing popularity of the Instagram hashtag #peckparkskatepark, Harris said, the plaza is destined to be a much-used attraction.

With several contiguous bowls, the design has something for everyone, from beginners to experts, Harris said.

It will become the 22nd skate park built in the city of Los Angeles.

“It’s a lot more dynamic” than skate parks constructed in earlier eras, Harris said. “It’s much more in line with the real top-notch skate parks in the Pacific Northwest.”

The original square footage, however, was pared down a bit from original plans, Harris said.

Originally, he said, the idea was to make it a hybrid design with both bowl and streetscape elements, such as rails and other structures characteristic of an urban street that draws skaters.

“We lost some square footage, which was kind of a bummer,” Harris said. “That made us change the design a little bit from a hybrid street-and-bowl design to pretty much just bowl skating.”

Harris thought that among the challenges in building the skate plaza at the site chosen by the city was the slight grade in the topography. The area where the plaza was built is on the far western perimeter of the rambling city park that features picnic areas, basketball courts, hiking trails, baseball diamonds, a gymnasium and an outdoor swimming pool.

Craig Raines, the city landscape architect who oversaw much of the project, said the size wasn’t changed by a significant amount, although the design was “tweaked.”

The plaza is about 8,000 square feet.

Anticipating problems with tagging, city officials already have worked out a plan with Harris’ group to provide needed supplies so users of the plaza will be responsible for painting out any graffiti that appears.

San Pedro’s only other skate park — under a freeway overpass at Channel Street — was constructed by skaters years ago with no formal approvals from either the city or the California Department of Transportation, which owns the property.

That park is scheduled to close down temporarily this fall for a year-and-a-half so improvements can be made to the overpass. But Harris said it will reopen after that, with plans to apply for grant money to beautify the landscaping around the area.

Financing for the new plaza at Peck Park came from city Quimby funds, fees collected from developers to provide more parks and open space.

The Tony Hawk Foundation also donated $27,000 toward the project, bringing with it recognition from the popular skateboarding legend. The foundation will be on hand for the ribbon-cutting, Harris said, but it is not known whether Hawk will attend.

Harris said skaters would love to see another plaza at perhaps Angels Gate Park or maybe along San Pedro’s redeveloped waterfront, where some of the hoped-for urban streetscape elements could be incorporated.

Despite the paring down of size in the original plans, region superintendent Mariscal said the plaza will be “one of our bigger” skate parks.