The popular skatepark at Jordan Park recently got a visit from skate legend Tony Hawk.
Now, the concrete playground, built as Hawk’s competitive skateboarding career was winding down in 2002, will get a redesign as a part of Salt Lake City’s fiscal 2026 capital improvement program.
The Salt Lake City Council approved a suite of improvements for neighborhoods across Utah’s capital on Aug. 19. The approval included an allocation of $90,000 for a study and redesign of the skatepark on 900 West, with an eye toward expanding it to meet the demand of those looking to shred there.
The city’s capital improvement program allocates funding to projects, some of which are citizen-requested, each year as a part of the larger budget process. For fiscal 2026, council members doled out about $44 million to 32 projects citywide.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Young skaters work on their tricks at Jordan Park on Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025. The Salt Lake City Council recently approved funding to study and redesign the skatepark, with an eye toward expanding it in the future.
New traffic-calming measures in Glendale are on the way, too, thanks to a late push from west-side council member Alejandro Puy.
“This is a project that is very important to District 2,” Puy said during an Aug. 12 council meeting. “... The community organized themselves for several years in a row to study the intersections.”
While Puy and the council were only able to find a little more than $76,000 in the back of the couch for the project, the allocation will fund speed humps between 900 South and 1300 South along 800 West, a main thoroughfare for bikers and walkers getting to the Sorenson Community Campus.
The traffic-calming application also calls for future improvements to intersections and roads around Glendale Middle School, Mountain View Elementary School and Parkside Elementary School, though those requests remain unfunded for now.
Also in District 2, the city will improve an awkward section of the Jordan River and its trail in and around Alzheimer’s Park, just south of Interstate 80. There, residents on the west bank of the river have limited access to the paved path and the river itself. A city-owned parcel at the end of Pierpont Avenue and Concord Street has attracted tent encampments recently. T
o the tune of $480,000, the city’s Public Lands Department has been tasked with creating a new nature area in that space and improving neighbors’ access to the trail on the other side of the river. The department will also study whether a bridge over the river there would be feasible.
Farther north, in District 1, council members voted to boost the walking and biking trail alongside Rose Park Lane, the main connection to the Regional Athletic Complex, by adding irrigated trees and improving the path’s pavement.
“This is a very lovely thing the city is doing to enhance it,” District 1 council member Victoria Petro, who represents the area, said at the Aug. 12 meeting. “It still represents about a third of what that neighborhood needs, but it’s a good faith signal from the city that we are hearing them, that we care about them and, even being on the edge of the city means you still deserve full service from us.”
Petro said she continues to prod the Utah Department of Transportation for a sound wall along the east shoulder of Interstate 215, which runs alongside the road.
Also in Petro’s district, 700 North from Redwood Road to 2200 West will get better pavement and other transportation and safety enhancements, while Riverside Park basketball court will get a face-lift.
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