By Sophia Wiener
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – A round of applause followed the announcement at the borough council meeting last week that, after six years of planning, designing, budgeting and construction, the Atlantic Highlands Skate Park’s remodel is finished.
The improvement was partially funded by grants from Monmouth County and New Jersey’s Department of Community Affairs, which support parks and public recreation areas. The grants totaled about $277,000, or just over half the cost.
The original skate park, built around 2008, was paved in “grainy asphalt,” according to NJgrind, a New Jersey skate park directory. It featured an array of modular metal ramps and rails. But as the years passed, local skaters came to the council asking for what were, in the view of borough engineer Douglas Rohmeyer of CME Associates, “really necessary upgrades to the facility.”
“It lacked a modern, integrated design,” Rohmeyer explained.
The new skate park is custom-built to the area’s size and budget, as well as the local skaters’ needs. It’s the product of collaboration between skate park designers Spohn Ranch, CME Builders and the borough, guided by ample feedback from the public.
At the April 7 meeting, Mayor Lori Hohenleitner weighed in on the new park. “This project has been something that (Rohmeyer) has really helped drive for. I think it’s been six years, and we got a lot of parents and kids and input on the design, and our designer, Spohn Ranch, has been incredible. They’ve really tried to make this a unique park that links with all the parks going down the river. I’m really just proud and grateful.”
Most dramatic is the replacement of asphalt with concrete, which is typically considered the superior choice due to its smoothness and design flexibility. A fully integrated concrete pour now covers the entire park’s surface. This creates smoother transitions than those between asphalt and metal and “exponentially increases rideability,” said Rohmeyer. Various design additions and enhancements also service more styles of skateboarding, with an increased variety of ramps and a round concrete ball for tricks.
As Hohenleitner explained, the new park was also designed in conversation with neighboring Leonardo Skate Park and Highlands Skate Park, which received facelifts in 2023. The parks are linked by the Henry Hudson Trail. All three feature distinctive design elements, making the entire area an attraction that skaters could spend a day hopping among.
The skate park reopened to the public April 10. An official opening ceremony is expected to take place in the coming weeks, but local skaters haven’t wasted any time breaking it in.
Harbor security guard Marc DeMasi saw a dozen skateboarders at the park at one point on opening day. And at the council meeting, Hohenleitner shared a story from the prior week: “I was driving home,” she said, “and there were five girls standing outside the (finished) skate park, and I pulled up to ask them what they thought. And they were just, I mean, overjoyed, begging to know when we were going to open it up.”
The article originally appeared in the April 17 – 23, 2025 print edition of The Two River Times.
