Well after almost four years of working really hard to keep things progressing here at Southside Skatepark, we believe that we have really accomplished something significant. I remember graduating high school in 94' and hearing about a new indoor skatepark that was opening up just twenty minutes from my house. I used to have to drive a solid hour and fifteen minutes to the Skatepark of Houston and the idea of a skatepark being that much closer to me, had me really happy. Almost as though the cosmos was signing off on my existence and pursuit of skateboarding up to that point in my life, which I had been really into it for eleven years at that time. I figured out where the new skatepark was and made my way over there and purchased a membership. That was going on seventeen years ago now and way back then I just skated the park as hard and as often as I could. There were a bunch of rippers along the way, people who had a ton of board control and style. The shop was coming along, but back then in skateboarding, everything was tiny, possibly even microscopic and so was the shop. Before long Southside was relocated about a mile away on the other side of it's South Houston neighborhood. The new park was about three times to size of the original with a much larger retail store with a growing level of inventory year after year. Way back then I thought it was the best shop I had ever been to. In fact the images above reflect the shop that I believed I was a part of. That pretty much sums of my vision for where I wanted to take Southside from the moment I was able. I just wanted to recreate what I thought Southside Skatpark's shop was when I was younger. It took almost four years and there is still plenty of room for growth and positive changes to the current shop. Now we are breaking new ground, taking the shop beyond anything I thought it could ever be. It isn't like there are a whole lot of other shops in this part of the United States to look to. There certainly are not many other skateparks around here to take cues from. I do a lot of traveling and try to keep my eye on what's going on out there. Seems like there is a lot more than there used to be, but not a whole lot on a larger scale. We have been doing pretty much everything you see above by feel. Just going with what feels like the right thing to do. Usually in life, if you stick with that basic principal, you'll do alright...better than alright in fact.
