Product Reviews

The Skatepark Owners Manual

The Skatepark Owners Manual

by Todd McGuire

American Book Business Press

This is a first of its kind book offering a description of running your own skatepark from concept to reality and accounts for many areas that most skatepark owners overlook. Todd McGuire relates most of his information he gathered from planning and running the Rain City Skatepark in Seattle Washington for 3 years before it closed down. We had actually met in its planning stages and I gave him what advice I could. I recall he was obsessively organized about his business plan. Unfortunately the park is still not open, but his loss might be your gain. His collected knowledge, including his business plan/ Executive Summary, is all in this book for any skatepark owner to learn from.

Chapter topics include business basics, site selection, park design and layout, public park issues, and management.

I knew from the first 2 paragraphs in the book that it would be a great resource. -excerpt: “As a privately owned skatepark, you will be operating a service based business. It is important to know who will come and pay for your services as well as the “service” issues that affect your business”.  Simple right? Yea, but I have seen time and again skateparks come and go because of the short sightedness in vision of the plan.

  • Info Sheet:
  • Release Date – August 1, 2011
  • 120 Pages
  • Soft Cover
  • Retail Cost: 19.95
  • Size: 5 x 8 inches

The book is available directly from Todd McGuire’s Blog site: http://skateparkbusiness.blogspot.com and should be easy to find after the release date at Amazon.com.

Please note that there is also some information about Co-Op’s and Public Parks that is good to consider.