New Riverhead skate park planned, fundraising underway for the $1M project

Riding his skateboard along one of the few remaining faded ramps at the Riverhead skate park, Chris Patti, 30, felt pangs of grief and nostalgia.

It’s where he spent most of his time as a teen, learning to be brave, refining tricks and bonding with his late best friend, Wesley Dean Ackley, for whom the park was renamed in 2023. But the park has deteriorated over time, so badly in parts that town crews removed large sections of ramps nearly a decade ago.

“It’s sacred grounds,” Patti, who now lives in Brooklyn, said in an interview. “It’s great they named it after Wes, but it’s time to give his legacy what it deserves.”

Patti is leading an effort to dream up a new skate park that would better honor Ackley’s memory. He formed a nonprofit and formally pitched a plan to the town board in January. The board signaled support for the upgrades, approving an effort to seek grant funding for the project.

Born and raised in Riverhead, Ackley died in January 2023 at 27 of rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer that affects muscles and bones. Skateboarding was his passion, and at age 14 Ackley lobbied Riverhead town officials to reverse course on a proposal to charge out-of-town skaters $100 annually to use the park.

Patti’s nonprofit, The Dexus Project, is named for a slang word Ackley coined, short for “dexterity using,” which means “extreme freshness.”

The group has partnered with Joplin, Missouri-based American Ramp Company to design the new cement park, which will feature a bowl, banks, ledges, stairs, handrails and quarter-pipe ramps. Cement parks are durable and don't require as much maintenance as the prefabricated metal and plywood ramps that are in use, Patti said.

He also envisions a pump track, a looped track for skaters and bikers to improve balance and other skills, and can be built to be ADA-accessible, he said.

Degrading conditions

Riverhead parks and recreation superintendent Ray Coyne said the composite wood used to build the ramps has posed challenges for more than a decade. “It continued to just degrade over time,” he said in an interview.

Several larger ramps that were more challenging for skaters were removed in 2016 after the town spent $60,000 to repair damaged boards.

Coyne supports the plan for a new park but said funding remains a challenge.

“We have 42 parks in Riverhead. All of them need some sort of repair, upgrades. We’re struggling just to do that,” he said.

A fundraising effort is underway for the project, which could cost between $1 million and $1.5 million. More than $23,000 in private donations has already been raised, Patti said.

In addition to government grants, Patti hopes to pursue funding through The Skatepark Project, founded by skating legend Tony Hawk in 2002. The organization has awarded $13 million to help build more than 650 skate parks across the country, according to its website.

Patti is modeling the project after a similar initiative in Montauk, where a public-private partnership led to a new 20,000-square-foot poured concrete skate park that opened in 2022. There, community members formed the Montauk Skatepark Coalition and worked with East Hampton Town to revamp the facility on Essex Street.

Suffolk site eyed

Riverhead’s new skate park would be built on parkland Suffolk County owns next to the current facility in Stotzky Park, Patti and town officials said.

The county acquired the 9.4-acre site on Columbus Avenue in 2001 using money from its Community Greenways Fund, county records show. The land deal included a long-term agreement with Riverhead Town to use it for park facilities. Riverhead previously eyed the site for new soccer fields.

“The county put up the money and then the town agreed to manage it going forward,” Suffolk Legis. Catherine Stark (R-Riverhead) said in an interview, adding she supports the project.

In an interview, Christine Ackley, Wesley’s mom, said a new skate park is an “awesome” idea.

“We’re just so proud of Chris, and I know Wes is looking down and is very proud of the momentum,” she said. “It hasn’t stopped.”

Part of Patti’s motivation stems from a surge in popularity of skateboarding after the pandemic and introduction of the sport to the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2021.

“If it continues on this trajectory, I think you’re going to see every town with a skate park, just how every town has baseball fields,” he said.

He said a new park could spark a “golden age” for the sport in town. The nonprofit would run skate clinics, events and contests at the park, Patti said.

Mostly, he wants to give back to youth.

“You might be a lonely kid at school, but when you go to the skate park, those are your people. You’re going to find mentors, just like I did. They’re going to show you the ropes,” Patti said. “That all happens organically.”