Rockville Skate Park
Just in time for the summer of 2021, the city of Rockville unveiled a new 15,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art skate park outside the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center on Martins Lane. The surface at the Rockville Skate Park is a specially engineered, super-smooth concrete, not asphalt, which makes for a better riding experience—and less abrasive falls. And it’s the only concrete skate park in the county where staffers are around to handle crowd control, ensure that everyone is wearing helmets, and offer pointers to young skaters.
With its 7-foot-deep kidney bowl and series of manual pads, quarter pipes, and a “pull jam,” the place is popular with experienced skaters looking to fine tune their moves, but versatile enough for beginners, too. The course’s flow makes it easy for everyone—whether on boards, skates or BMX bikes—to share the space without creating roller derby-style chaos.
Open from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. during the week (closed Mondays) and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends, the skate park is free to everyone. Music is piped in over speakers: Disney and pop songs during family skate hours (10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays), and “clean hard rock” later in the day, says Recreation Programs Supervisor Jordan Perry.
On weekend mornings, the park is often filled with young children, some decked out in cartoon character helmets, who navigate the twists and turns on their scooters while parents chat on covered benches nearby. Middle schoolers turn up most days after they finish their homework, Perry says, and teens and young adults seem to favor the evenings (the park is lit for nighttime skating).
But the venue isn’t just for kids. “An older gentleman, probably in his 60s,” arrived practically every morning this summer with his in-line skates and headed straight to the bowl, Perry says. “He would come in his red pickup truck…put his knee pads on…elbow pads…towel over his shoulder…walk right in, and just skate.”
Rockville Skate Park, 355 Martins Lane, Rockville, 240-314-8620, rockvillemd.gov/383/skate-park
