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Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Radford University student Kevin Holroyd flys through the air at the new Blacksburg skate park Thursday. The official opening is today at noon.

• Video of the skate park

BLACKSBURG -- Curtis Boone dropped into the concrete bowl in the town's new skate park and carved around the kidney-shaped shallow section before plunging into the 9¹₂-foot-deep end on his skateboard Friday.

A few minutes later while taking a break on a hot day, the 18-year-old from Pearisburg said he had few places to skate besides parking lots in his hometown, and he sometimes got kicked out of those.

"This is amazing compared to that," Boone said before heading off to try more tricks while his mother, who had chauffeured him to the park, snapped pictures.

With its $185,000 skate park that officially opens today but has been attracting dozens of skateboarders or bicycle stunt riders all week, Blacksburg's extreme-sports enthusiasts should be the envy of their peers.

The opening ceremony will feature trick competitions as well as time for riders to just cruise freely around the park.

The roughly 8,000-square-foot park replaced a crumbling wooden skate park that dates to when officials banned skateboarding downtown a decade ago.

For the new park "we wanted to build something that is cutting-edge and one of the best in Virginia," Blacksburg Parks and Recreation Director Dean Crane said. "That was our goal. And I think we're pretty close to it."

Along with the bowl, the new park has a street course featuring metal-edged ledges ideal for sliding and grinding maneuvers. Pads are optional but "strongly recommended" at the free park, which is open from dawn to dusk and is not staffed, Crane said.

The park was built by California Skateparks of Upland, Calif., and designed by Wally Hollyday, who has been building skate parks since the late 1970s.

Years ago, Hollyday said, skate parks were privately owned, charged admission and tended to go out of business often. To cover their costs, including insurance, private skate parks often charged more than their largely young clientele was willing or able to pay.

These days, municipalities across the country are building skate parks as what was once viewed as a fringe sport has grown in popularity and acceptance. Hollyday spoke by cellphone from Salt Lake City, where he was working on two skate park projects.

Another reason for the increase in skate parks is that as towns have banned skating in public, Crane said, they have felt obligated to give people a place to practice the sport.

Next to the new skate park is a seating area shaded by an unusual-looking pavilion designed by two Virginia Tech architecture students, Jeff Franklin and Miron Nawratil, who have since graduated.

Inspired by crooked barns they saw dotted around the region, the students designed a purposefully off-kilter structure, Crane said.

The pavilion's metal roof is held up with beams made from pine trees that were cut down within Municipal Park. The trees had been growing too close together near the tennis court and were to be felled regardless, Crane said.

The splintery, old wooden skate park still stands just downhill from the new park. Blacksburg officials may donate the obstacles in that park to another locality that would refurbish them, said Crane, who declined to identify potential recipients.

Ultimately, Crane said, Blacksburg will tear up the asphalt in the old skate park and turn that area to green space.

Ryan Witte was among dozens of people riding in the park Thursday afternoon.

Interviewed later by phone, the 18-year-old Radford University freshman, who has been skating since he was in fourth grade and is originally from Virginia Beach, said he was "real excited" to hear a concrete park had opened not too far from his new home. Witte said he prefers concrete parks to wooden ones.

"You can just flow it a lot easier, because it's all connected," Witte said.

Boone was fast becoming a fan of concrete parks on just his second trip to Blacksburg's.

"My favorite part is probably the bowl," he said. "It's just fun getting in it and carving it out. It's just a big breeze in your face. It's pretty nice. It's pretty exciting, too. An adrenaline rush."

Boone's mother, Michelle Lucas, said she enjoyed watching her son at his sport, even though he had just recovered from a broken foot suffered while skateboarding.

"It gives him something to do with his time that's a positive thing," Lucas said. "It's better than staying inside playing video games all day."