CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Eastland DIY Skate Park will be closed in a few weeks as the city shuts the land down for redevelopment.
City of Charlotte officials have notified the city council that the park will close on March 3. Back in August, Mecklenburg County commissioners approved an agreement with the city that would provide tax incentives for the development of the old Eastland Mall site.
The $26 million project will have mixed-income housing, a park, greenways, businesses and a full-service grocery store. The site will also include entertainment venues but the key part may be the Charlotte FC headquarters.
The area will also include office space, restaurants, and retail. The city agreed to reimburse 45% of new city property taxes made by the redevelopment back to the developer for 20 years.
It's not exactly what one would call a popular idea among the Queen City's skateboarding community.
“Skaters, more than 10 years ago, started building here," said Dray Star, an east Charlotte skater. "And we've just been adding on ever since. As you see, it's super colorful.”
Over the past few years, each ramp was built by skaters who call the place home.
Every makeshift ramp has a story on when it was built and who built it. A petition to keep the park said Eastland DIY was built for the unique skate community to have a free and no-hassle place for kids and adults to skateboard.
Star found the park a few months after moving to Charlotte.
"A lot of Black folks, Hispanic folks, it's a lot of just minorities out here," he said. "And this is where we come to skate. But it's not just minorities. Everybody has a family here.”
You can find traditional graffiti art on the ramps in addition to signs with statements like Black Trans Lives Matter.
“You take away this, you've literally taken away. somebody's home, safe haven," said Darius McDonald, another skater. "Like, it's more than just skateboarding, you know, this is people's lives we're talking about here. There's literally people saying like, this place has saved their life."
They don’t know where they’ll go from here. There are other skate parks in the area, but the east Charlotte skaters say they cost money and some are too far.
“They're trying to say that they want to build culture and start culture in Charlotte, but we've had it and they're destroying it," Star said.
The city says after March 3rd, barricades will likely go up and the next demolition is set to start the following day.
Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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