Santa Rosa Park — Attraction in San Luis Obispo

This review is specifically for SLO Skatepark, located at Santa Rosa Park.

It's also important to point out that I'm allocating 2 stars for my personal rating of the skatepark, and 1 star to account for the thousands of San Luis Obispo parents who would give this skatepark 5 stars all day long because it's aesthetically pleasing and gives them a place to park their unruly teens for hours on end.

Let's start with those aesthetics shall we... I frequently find myself wondering which constitutes a more significant swing-and-a-miss: the giant metal trees, or the transportation themed paint job. I'd really like to hear the set of thematic contenders that were bested by "transportation and highway signs" for what to paint around the park. Or maybe it was some well-intentioned, but misguided member of the design team who managed to convince the rest of the group that skateboarders resonate incredibly deeply with... highways. Either way, I think I have to give the edge to the giant sculptures vaguely resembling trees, given that they likely came with a multimillion dollar price tag, and just hilariously not worth the cost. The amount of shade provided by something intended to be a shade structure, is certifiably preposterous. The elevated flat surfaces of each level are made up by metal letters that let an immense amount of sunlight through. They did however do the courtesy of slipping some fun easter eggs into the letters by spelling words like "gaytwist" just to add a little extra flare.

For all the visual folly, I would really take no issue had the designers of this outfit actually produced a high quality skatepark. Unfortunately, the design flaws run deeper than the 12 foot bowl that almost no one can skate. The one-way directional flow is so nonsensical that I'm truly concerned the lead designer on this project has never actually ridden a skateboard. The clunky and disproportionate nature of most obstacles make this park very difficult for beginners, and very frustrating for experienced skaters, so you do have to give some credit for the equal opportunity shittiness.

To add some extra irony, the small-pool areas that I imagine are intended for beginner use, are so poorly designed and positioned that they actually serve as an injury hazard for all park riders. In all seriousness these tiny pools would work better as actual kiddie pools for swimming than they do for skateboarding. Continuing with hilarious design pranks, the giant metal trees must have used up the entirety of the park's ingot budget because we got 3 metal trees... and zero flatbars. Don't worry though kids, you can learn all grinds on the 3 and 4 stair rails that as a 15 year skateboarder, I don't even feel comfortable grinding!

Alllllll that being said, I have been skating this park multiple days a week for the past 4-5 years since it opened, so its not like it has no value, but my options for where to skate in slo county are about as good as the list of options must have been that resulted in the blockbuster skatepark theme: highways and...

My kids play on the Cities slow pitch ball teams & it's a nice maintained field but they don't do anything else! The bathrooms & drinking fountains are really getting bad!! These facilities are also used by the public from the various skateboarders & skaters at the Skateboard Park & rink. Which are surrounded by small buildings but never see open doors or any staff around. You can frequently find several sleeping people on the ground in front of those doors. This park has been here since I can remember as a child having Birthday parties, huge bbq fundraisers, reunions etc. because there is plenty of parking & wonderful green grass & shade trees but like so many of our City facilities they're being neglected simply because no one holds anyone accountable for doing their jobs!! So many excuses, staff not showing up, laziness & the fear of offending someone, yada yada & then loosing their job for doing their job. So pack up your car, get a picnic basket, big blanket, grab some lawn games, get some comfy clothes on & run away to this park & enjoy the beautiful trees, grass, birds while it's still free...

The park is really nice, especially the skate area. I went about last week when they had the skater competition and the park was fun clean and exciting to go too. The competition was free to go too, I'm not sure when or how often they do it, but it's definitely a sight to see. You'll just have to keep your eyes on it whenever they have another competition. But parking is one thing to consider if you go to one of these competition, it may be a bit tight at times.. especially on Monday. On Monday the city adults baseball team comes and practice, and the park lots gets a bit tight. So Mondays might not be the best day to bring your family for a picnic. Anyways the they had a little kids play ground nice and shaded with big tree. I did not see too many homeless people. Maybe one or at least two on one far corner of the park. They had bathrooms near the playground as well. They're pretty clean as far as public bathroom standards go. Their nothing fancy, so don't expect anything out of the ordinary from these restrooms. Anyways... the park was a nice place to visit and could recommend going...