Are skate parks passe? This Pierce County city to replace one with pickleball courts

Fans of pickleball can rejoice in the fact that the city of Lakewood recently green-lighted a plan to bring four pickleball courts to the lakefront Harry Todd Park. Others aren’t happy that it’ll mean Lakewood will be demolishing a skate park and tennis court to make room.

Harry Todd Park is a 17-acre lakefront park in the Tillicum neighborhood that has a swimming beach, fishing pier, boat docks, playground, bathrooms, two sports fields and a picnic shelter.

Construction will begin in 2025 on four new pickleball courts — two of which will be adaptive — as well as four accessible parking spots near the basketball court. Currently a small skate park and tennis court sit there.

Lakewood Parks and Recreation director Mary Dodsworth told The News Tribune on Thursday the decision to bring pickleball to Harry Todd Park was a result of resident feedback and the city’s 20-year strategic parks Legacy Plan.

Dodsworth said the skate park and tennis courts are now “rarely used,” and the equipment has outlived the average park amenity lifespan of 15 years. The skate park, which features several metal ramps and bars, opened in 2006, she said.

At that time there was a lot of interest and need for a skate park there, but over time tastes have changed and building Lakewood’s only public pickleball course was something Lakewood residents wanted, Dodsworth said.

Pickleball — the official sport of Washington and one of the fastest growing sports in the United States — is low-impact, cheap and something all ages can play if they have balls and paddles, she said.

“Twenty-five percent of the people in Tillicum have self-recognized some kind of disability. [There’s] a lot of older adults,” Dodsworth said. “We don’t have any in Lakewood, so it will be a new special thing in the Tillicum area. And we do think that folks will come there to play, which means then they’ll go to lunch there or shop there, so we do see it as kind of an economic boost for that neighborhood area as well.”

Some pickleball pushback

Some who have fond memories of the skate park and the man who advocated for it to be built said they are disappointed with the city’s decision to demolish it. Others sitting in the grass at the park Tuesday told The News Tribune they thought neighbors would be more likely to use a skate park than a pickleball court and said the skate park is often busy on weekends.

Yelm resident Tegan Herold, who grew up in Lakewood and Tillicum, said in the early 2000s there weren’t many places for teenagers to skateboard nearby. Her friend Ryan Wilmott, who passed away suddenly in 2023, was a big advocate for building the Harry Todd Park skate park.

Although Herold doesn’t live in Lakewood anymore and hasn’t used the skatepark in decades, she said she was still livid to hear the city was planning to tear down the skate park in favor of pickleball. Removing it feels like it’s taking away Wilmott’s legacy and also takes away from kids who need a place to be active and outside, she said.

Tim Bhan also knew Wilmott and has lived in Tillicum since he was young. Bhan said his 8-year-old son Michael likes to ride his bike around the skate park. He seemed skeptical about how often neighbors would actually use a pickleball court and suggested the city build the courts elsewhere in the park if they wanted to do that.

“It’s going to bring in a different demographic that isn’t the demographic of kids who are here,” Bhan said, noting that Harry Todd Park is the only public park in the area. “The kids in Tillicum aren’t going to utilize the pickleball court, so you’d be taking that away from them. Taking away one-fifth of their options of things to do in a town that is already dislocated from the rest of Lakewood’s resources.”

Dodsworth said she remembers Wilmott well and was the staff person who worked with Wilmott and Tillicum residents to write grants to renovate one of the tennis courts into a skate park.

In the future Lakewood will be working with the Clover Park School District and community groups to provide free pickleball equipment for residents to use and will host clinics to teach people how to play, Dodsworth said.

The city plans to donate any salvageable skate-park equipment to a local nonprofit for use in youth-related programming in under-served areas, she said.

“We understand that there’s some challenges,” Dodsworth said. “So we want to make it easy for people to be able to participate and to play.”