Kansas City is giving artists a chance to help design art for a skate park to be built under the new Buck O’Neil Bridge.
The new call for public art proposals will consider mosaics, murals, cast concrete, sculpture and more. The park, which will be near Beardsley Road between 3rd and 5th streets, is expected to be completed by spring or early summer 2026.
“The act of skateboarding and riding other wheeled activities within a skate park is kind of an art form in itself,” said Kanten Russell, director of design for New Line Skateparks, the Canadian team that will design the 16,000-square-foot park in collaboration with the nonprofit MOKAN Skates.
“It's also going to be a great opportunity for people to spectate and have the skate park itself be kind of an artistic installation,” said Russell, a former professional skateboarder.
Current plans call for the park, beneath the city’s new, $258 million bridge, to emulate a downtown urban plaza, mixed with banks and transitions that keep the flow moving for skateboarders, bikers, and roller skaters, Russell said.
The local skating community has grown rapidly in recent years, but Ben Hlavacek, president of MOKAN Skates, said Kansas City has not made improvements to the skate park system until now.
The Harrison Street DIY skate park in the Columbus Park neighborhood, a project Hlavacek was involved in, was slated for demolition last year to make way for development by the Housing Authority of Kansas City.
But the new Buck O’Neil Bridge project gives him hope, and anticipation for the project is high.
"I'm really excited to have a space that's going to be servicing the Westside, the Northeast, and all these other areas surrounding downtown," Hlavacek said. "I think it's going to be like a really unifying space for everybody."
Kansas City Public Art Administrator James Martin said the goal for artists who apply will be to make the art an integral part of the skate park.
“The art will be visible and functional,” Martin said. “This will be very much a piece that's designed for interaction.”
The project budget is $200,000, and the deadline for the first round of proposals is Aug. 11. The second round will award five semifinalists $3,000 to craft designs for the project.
In a different open call for artists, the city is also asking for art proposals that would reuse 250,000 pounds of steel from the old Buck O'Neil Bridge that was demolished in February 2024.
Martin said artists are welcome to include that material in a skate park proposal.
“It's actually not a requirement for applying for this particular project, but we'd welcome the opportunity for providing steel from the bridge for an art project,” Martin said.
