Sierra Vista-Kiwanis Skate and Bike Court/Veteran's Memorial Park - Sierra Vista, Arizona, U.S.A.

Sierra Vista's park features 3 main areas - a plaza (with lots of stairs, ledges and rails), a kidney pool, and flowing skate paths connecting those two areas. Sierra Vista's skatepark goes by three different names: "Sierra Vista-Kiwanis Skate and Bike Court" (the official, city-designated name of the skatepark complex); "Veteran's Memorial Park" (the city park that the skatepark resides in); and "Sierra Vista [Skatepark]" (as most skaters would call it). The skatepark is a rather large plaza that might well encompass 17000 square feet, but the actual skateable-area is probably 3000-5000 square feet at best- and much of that is a connecting path that runs from the bowl, to the street area. I didn't get to skate the bowl, due to a bum knee. It looks well-designed, but maybe hastily executed; the locals referred to it as "kinky" and hard to skate. It's a left-hand kidney, so certifiable pool sharks of the goofy-footed variety might find it a bit of fun. The "street" area is largely defined by ledges, banks, and stairs- well-designed, and better built than the bowl. Between the bowl and the street area is a faux "snake run" that is actually a wandering walking path with taco-shaped elements creating grindable corners and escalators. One of these escalators caused the bum knee that I referenced earlier... being unexpectedly spit straight onto the flatbottom of the walking path is no fun at all... but the tacos were a hoot to skate. Even after my grand slam, I continued to skate them until my knee wouldn't tolerate any more swelling. All in all, it's a pretty fun park. Might be worth a half-hour or an hour drive, and definitely the best skatepark in far southern Arizona. It is lit, there are bathrooms, and there's even a water park across the parking lot for those scalding summer days. As a bonus: there is a fun-looking ditch complex just west of the skatepark, at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, and Coronado Drive, that runs noth and south along the east side of Coronado. You may wanna give that a quick look, sweep, and skate- but you didn't hear that from me. -Bud Stratford, Everything Skateboarding/Concrete Disciples. Tuesday, March 20th, 2018.