Momentum Grows for Encanto Neighborhood Skate Plaza

By Angelo Haynes

On the evening of January 8th at 6pm, residents and community members of Encanto and surrounding areas of City Council District 4 gathered at the Encanto Recreation Center to provide input on the construction of a skate plaza on an existing shuffleboard court.

Several community groups were in attendance, including the San Diego Parks Foundation, an independent non-profit group that raises funds with the goal of enhancing public parks across San Diego County. One man in particular, Abel Macias, has been the driving force behind this entire project beginning with his activism with a local chapter of Black Lives Matter during the pandemic.

Abel coordinated with several skater friends in the neighborhood to create an activist group that took to the streets in a unique protest that brought people together for social justice, but turned into a coalition that sought to develop the sport of skating in his community.

“This actually goes back to the Black Lives Matter movement in San Diego. There’s a guy over here named Zach Dowdy — we worked together and took over the streets of downtown San Diego for Black lives — it was all skaters. He (Zach) reached out to a community member who used to live right over here next to the rec center. So, after that event went down, he was inspired because he didn’t realize that Black and Brown people skated too.”

Zach and Abel’s mutual skater friend who grew up in this community on Wunderlin drive began to imagine new possibilities after seeing the diversity on display in the local skater community. Those possibilities began to take shape when he thought about a large empty lot just across the street from the Encanto Rec center next to his childhood home.

“Zach had reached out to me and we go way back from community organizing and political activism and stuff. And so, we reached out to city councilwoman Monica Montgomery but we ran into a bunch of red tape and hurdles and we lost momentum, so we gave up. In-between that time Monica Montgomery became a county supervisor and then Henry Foster took over.” Abel recounted.

It would be here that the tide would change.

“When Henry Foster took over, they got a donation of $100,000 to build a skatepark.”

Seeing the funding support caused Abel to look beyond the privately owned empty lot and refocus his sights on an underutilized shuffle ball court that had been at the park since the 1950’s. This would ultimately be a wise decision as the logistics of the project would be much easier since the project is privately funded requiring only an amendment to the Park General Development Plan (GDP) and a change in the use of the facility. Abel then created an Instagram page encantoskateplaza to promote the project and gather more supporters to his cause.

In addition to the $100,000 donation from a private source, the San Diego Parks Foundation donated an additional $50,000, helping the project meet the half funding threshold needed to allow the project to be eligible for consideration and a vote by the Encanto Community Recreation Group (ECRG). Tech giant AirBnB also donated to the building of this park showcasing a diverse private funding base. Abel and many community members pushed the issue during a ECRG meeting back in October 2025, leading to the meeting this month.

Besides individual skaters and neighbors, Abel’s coalition was also supported by local skater and business owner Stan Brown who manages Grosero Tattoo and Skate shop in Lemon Grove. Stan has been sponsoring and supporting Abel’s efforts and had this to say.

“My skate shop is actually backing the project and we are one of the sponsors with the giveaway tonight and to be honest this is something that is necessary: half of our skate team came from Encanto, so this is why we are big advocates of this project. They’re not a professional team they’re all ams (amateurs)” Stan stated.

When asked about how this project might signify a cultural and attitude shift towards skating in the community, Stan commented.

“Absolutely, skateboarding has been a growing sport especially with young girls and even elderly people are starting to skate because they’re trying to find something new to do so skateboarding is growing very rapidly, it’s an Olympic sport now which we weren’t at all. Growing up I didn’t have any access to skate parks so I had to skate in the streets.”

After the San Diego parks foundation conducted their raffle and giveaway community members filed into a meeting room in the rec center and met with the Encanto Community Recreation Group who gave a recap of the previous meetings details and proposals for the park.

Staff from Councilman Henry Foster’s office were in attendance including Senior Policy Advisor Jacqueline Kennedy and Chief of staff Tiffany Harrison. Kennedy recapped the plans of the park showing several diagrams and designs submitted by local contractors. District 4 currently only has one skatepark located on the south side of the area in Paradise Hills at the corner of Paradise Valley Road and Potomac Street, revealing a need that is currently underserved.

“As you can see here there are no skateparks within a 3-mile radius of Encanto, many skateboarders in this part of our district go to Lemon Grove skatepark as there is no place for them to skate legally in our community.” Kennedy stated.

Park Staff such as Lexus Jackson, the Center director of the Encanto neighborhood park, Reyna Brown the Assistant Center director, Evelyn Smith and Angelica Palados were on hand representing the ECRG.

Evelyn Smith notified the group that they would not be voting on the park as they did not have a quorum, but encouraged community members to join the next meeting on Feb 25. At that meeting, any community members in attendance could be elected to the board and ultimately vote on approving the park.