KCMO is building a skate park under the Buck O’Neil Bridge (and tagging artists for the blank canvas)
July 9, 2025 | Julie Denesha
Editor’s note: The following story was published by KCUR, Kansas City’s NPR member station, and a fellow member of the KC Media Collective. Click here to read the original story or here to sign up for KCUR’s email newsletter.
Local artists can have a hand in creating public art to accompany a planned skate park between River Market and the West Bottoms; Riders in the area hope the site becomes a hub for the local skateboarding community
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.
Kansas City issued a call for artists to create work for the future 16,000-square-foot Buck O’Neil Bridge Skate Park. It will include banks and transitions that to keep the flow moving throughout the new skate park; rendering courtesy of New Line Skateparks
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.”
Renderings for the planned skate park show a mix of ramps, ledges, and rails alongside natural landscaping elements; rendering courtesy of New Line Skateparks
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.
Kansas City is also asking for art proposals that would reuse 250,000 pounds of steel from the old Buck O’Neil Bridge, which was demolished in February 2024; photo by Julie Denesha, KCUR
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.
2025 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
KC GIFT’s $100K grant — its largest-ever — aims to help boost Black-owned job creator
A newly opened $100,000 grant represents a significant step in Kansas City GIFT’s mission to close the racial wealth gap — investing in Black-owned businesses that have the potential to become significant employers and economic drivers in their communities, said Brandon Calloway. “We exist to right the wrongs of the past and create the economic…
They just wanted someone to notice: 10 years (and an exit) later, the first founders featured in Startland News have come 360
Editor’s note: Startland News — officially launched May 4, 2015 — is marking its 10-year anniversary this spring. As part of this observance, the nonprofit newsroom is taking a look back at pivotal moments in its decade-long run, as well as impact along the way. Longtime editor-in-chief Tommy Felts caught up with Stuart Ludlow and David…
Entrepreneur flexes her creative strengths into visibility for Kansas City’s lupus warriors
Keisha Jordan refuses to be a wallflower in the fight against lupus, she said. The founder of Kansas City-based creative home design brand Complex Flavors, Jordan is working to raise awareness this month with her own story as an entrepreneur-turned-lupus warrior. “We just want everybody to know that Kansas City has not forgotten about the…
KC’s 10-year playbook: Celebrate the wins, but go faster, farther (and leave no talent behind)
A decade of focusing on inclusive prosperity helped Kansas City rise among its peers, said David Warm, but the next 10 years require the region work quickly, with even more intention, and leaning into Kansas City’s willingness to forge its own path, together. “We are not going to get direction from the federal government. It…