For years Bolton has been home to one of just two indoor skate and bike parks in Vermont. When the Bolton Valley Resort announced a plan to close its park earlier this month and replace the facility with tennis and pickleball courts, the backlash was fast and fierce.
“We knew that there were going to be some people who were disappointed,” said Lindsay DesLauriers, the resort’s president and CEO. “We did not anticipate the intensity of it.”
The fallout has prompted resort leaders to delay the park’s closure, originally planned for Oct. 1.
“I acknowledge that we did not do a good job with the way that we engaged people, starting with our staff, around this decision. And we’re going to do what we can to correct that,” DesLauriers said, noting that she plans to meet with staff Monday and expects to engage the greater community, too. “Right now, I would say we’re hitting the pause on a firm closing date. We want to get through some of these conversations first before we nail down a specific date.”
Word of the closing got out before the resort made its formal announcement on Sept. 19. A petition created three days earlier had garnered nearly 1,600 signatures by Thursday evening.
“The skatepark is a crucial place for skateboarders in Vermont, being the only other indoor skatepark other than Talent, and we believe that it serves many more people than tennis courts would,” it states.
Comments have since flooded the resort’s social media pages.
“I think it will drastically affect many families’ lives this winter,” said Miri Mahar, a Bolton resident who has been using the privately owned skate park with her daughter Scout since it opened almost five years ago. “It’s a huge hot spot for families to bring children or when the lifts close. It’s also utilized a lot by families who are up here on winter vacation or February break.”
Scout just celebrated her fourth birthday there.
“It’s where she learned to ride her bike and where she’s starting to learn how to skateboard,” said Mahar, who accompanies her daughter on rollerblades.
At times Mahar said she has been nervous about her young daughter playing among adult skateboarders or BMX bikers but they always watch out for her and even take her under their wing.
“It’s an amazing community. They’re so sweet to her, and they show her how to do things,” she said.
Built over two former tennis courts, the skate park is located in the sports center at Bolton Valley Resort and can be used by anyone with a season or day pass. A day pass costs $30 for adults and $20 for children aged 6-15, according to the resort’s website.
In comments on social media, some people have made the case that removing a skate park to cater to a tennis and fast-growing pickleball community amounts to socioeconomic discrimination.
DesLauriers disputed that and said Bolton Valley was simply making a decision based on what makes the most economic sense for the resort.
The challenge, as a small business in a competitive industry, is to strike a balance between being viable and being a great community resource, she said. But the reality is that they run a ski resort and the skate park has not driven enough business to sustain itself.
“The skate community is a part of our community at Bolton Valley, we really value it,” she said.
Nick Mallow, who manages Bolton Valley’s sports center, said he and his friends grew up skateboarding in the area.
So they were excited when Talent Skatepark opened in Burlington, and then when that park’s bowl — a central feature with sloped edges — was moved to the Bolton facility in 2018.
Even though the conversation about repurposing the skate park for tennis courts has been happening for a few years, Mallow said he was “dumbfounded,” as an employee, by the recent announcement to close.
“I think driving some more marketing and hosting more skate jams could help fill a quota if there was one for us to bring in more money for the skate park,” he suggested.
Whatever happens, he added, he is happy to work to help the resort transition the best he can.
Colin Brown, who used to work at the Bolton skate park, has been a skateboarder for more than 30 years. He designed some of the features at Bolton and said the facility is well used, especially in the winter. On a busy weekend it can bring in 10 to 30 skateboarders, he estimated.
“I feel like there’s plenty of places to go play tennis and pickleball in the area. And when it comes to skateboarding, there’s this one spot where we can do it here in the winter,” he said. “Having this resource was huge for the skate community.”
DesLauriers said the resort is having conversations about relocating some of the park’s features, especially the iconic bowl, which some say is a part of Vermont’s skating history.
“We’re a complex business with a lot of ins and a lot of outs and we make decisions about directions every day. Different decisions demand different levels of engagement,” she said. “We totally misjudged this one.”
