By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

(Aug. 27, 2026) Advocates for a skate park in Berlin received good news last week when they learned the project was awarded a $300,000 grant, pushing a long-held dream closer to reality.

On Wednesday, Aug. 19, the Maryland Board of Public Works approved the Town of Berlin’s request for $300,000 through the Community Parks and Playgrounds Program (CPP), to be used for the construction of a skateboarding campus within town.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) administers the CPP grant. CCP provides financial support to municipal governments looking to expand or construct community parks or install playground equipment.

We Heart Berlin, a nonprofit that promotes healthy, sustainable activities, has spearheaded a project to build a public site for Berlin’s skateboarders. The recreational complex will be erected at Heron Park.

We Heart Berlin Founder Tony Weeg said the recently awarded $300,000 will likely fund final designs, steel fabrication, demolition work, utilities, and mass grading.

The skate park’s price tag is about $975,000. However, Weeg noted earlier this year that the final cost will be closer to $1.3 million when accounting for add-on features like lighting and shade structures.

Weeg told the Bayside Gazette on Monday that Berlin has $45,000 stashed away for the skate park. Of that, $20,000 was gifted anonymously, and $14,000 was secured from the dissolution of the Gavin Knupp Foundation, started by the mother of hit-and-run victim Gavin Knupp. The foundation was disbanded after embezzlement and theft allegations surfaced involving the trust. The remaining funds were dispersed to local charities.

With the CPP award, the skate park’s reserve has now soared to $345,000.

The municipality is still waiting to hear back on other grant opportunities it applied for, including a $487,500 grant from DNR’s Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and a $100,000 grant from the Worcester County Health Department Transformation Collaborative.

A skate park for Berlin has been in the works for several years and has been steadily progressing.

In 2022, the Los Angeles-based skateboard park design-and-build company Spohn Ranch was hired to create conceptual plans.

According to those drawings, the skateboard facility will likely reach 14,000 to 16,000 square feet and be situated adjacent to the space planned for the town’s new public works building at Heron Park. The site will include classic skate park elements, including a bowl, quarter pipes, a pump track, amphitheater steps, a hipped bank, a grind ledge, an A-frame bank, a slappy curb, and a landscape area.

In April of 2025, Berlin Public Works Director Jimmy Charles, joined by We Heart Berlin representatives, conducted a walk-through of the future park’s site and noted the structure’s dimensions.

Spohn Ranch is expected to complete construction of the skate park when the time comes. The company will add the Berlin project to its official schedule as soon as the town secures all the necessary funding.