Colfax Skatepark Construction Update: What’s Happening on Parkhill Drive
The Colfax Skatepark is finally under construction — and if you’ve driven by it lately, you’ve probably noticed it. A construction site sits next to the old pool, dirt reshaped into curves and hollows that don’t look like anything else in town. As of this week, the Colfax Skatepark officially has concrete in it.
We’re not the ones building it. That credit belongs entirely to Colfax Green Machine, the local nonprofit that spent the better part of a decade turning an empty lot into a funded, permitted, shovel-ready project — plus a long list of sponsors, haulers, and volunteers who showed up when it mattered. What we want to do is make sure anyone who cares about what’s happening in Historic Downtown Colfax has the real story, in one place, as it happens. Because this is exactly the kind of project that turns a highway pass-through into a place worth stopping for.
On July 14, 2026, a construction crew stood in the half-formed main bowl and sprayed the first shotcrete — wet concrete shot against rebar and mesh to form the skateable surface. It’s not a glamorous milestone to watch. But it’s the moment a hole in the ground starts turning into a landmark.
Colfax Skatepark Timeline: How It Actually Got Here
Skip the folklore for a second, because the paper trail is more interesting than the legend.
The Colfax City Council first approved the skatepark to move forward — on the lot next to the Lions Splash Park — back in March of 2021. That got it a site. It didn’t get it a shovel. The vote that actually got construction moving didn’t come until five years later, in April 2026, when the council approved the construction bid. Everything in between was the slow work of turning a site into a fundable, buildable plan.
Design work leaned on the people who’d actually use the thing. Ty Conners of the Placer County Sheriff’s Office ran community input sessions with local kids and adults to shape a layout that works for skateboards, scooters, and BMX bikes — not just one tribe of riders. The council signed off on final design plans in July 2025.
Money came in slower than the plans did, and it kept having to stretch further than anyone budgeted for. The original project estimate was $444,000. By 2024, prevailing-wage labor requirements and a few years of inflation had pushed that to $674,000 — a jump big enough that Colfax Green Machine ended up redesigning the park with New Line Skateparks to fit the new number.
The funding stack grew to match. Placer County kicked in an initial $75,000 in park fees in February 2022, then added another $130,000 in March 2024 — after the county’s Parks Commission voted 7-0 to recommend it — bringing the county’s total to $205,000. The City of Colfax added a $175,000 grant, then came back in February 2024 with another $100,000 in city park fees to help absorb the cost increase. And Colfax Green Machine did the rest, raising roughly $194,000 combined through grants, community fundraising, and in-kind support — the old-fashioned way: asking.
Then came the unglamorous part: bidding. The council awarded the construction contract to New Line Skateparks — a firm with roughly 400 finished skateparks across North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia — at a special meeting on April 16, 2026.
Colfax Skatepark Groundbreaking, Dirt Work, and a Very Big Donation
Once the contract was signed, things moved fast by municipal standards.
Teichert showed up first, in late May, to demo the old structures, clear the lot, and start digging drainage. Then, on June 3, Colfax got its “dirt parade” — Robinson’s Sand & Gravel, Lorang Brothers, Hansen Brothers, Hyde Transportation, and the Placer County Road Department hauling in roughly 550 yards of fill dirt in a single coordinated push. Triton Construction followed behind, compacting and shaping that dirt into the rough contours New Line’s design called for.
The official groundbreaking ceremony landed on June 8, 2026, at the old pool site — the same lot the council had approved five years earlier. Community members, sponsors, and city officials turned out for it. Best Western Colfax stepped up with discounted lodging for New Line’s crew, who are living in town for the full two-and-a-half-month build.
The ceremony also came with news that mattered more than the ribbon-cutting itself: Woodward Tahoe, already a $20,000 Gold Sponsor, announced an additional $15,000 — pushing their total to $35,000 and moving them into the project’s new Elite Sponsor tier. That kind of gift closes the gap between “we have enough to start” and “we have enough to finish.”
Colfax Skatepark Construction: What’s Happening Right Now
As of mid-July, shotcrete — sprayed concrete, applied directly onto rebar forms — is going into the main bowl, with the work scheduled to run three straight days. It’s the step where a skatepark stops being a shape drawn in dirt and starts being a shape you could actually skate.
Colfax Green Machine has been careful to name names along the way, and it’s worth doing the same here. Teichert donated aggregate for the concrete. AA Concrete Supply and Livingston’s Concrete Service hauled it. Solomon Colors is in the mix. Skate 4 Concrete has been on-site helping New Line build. And a crew from 900 Films has been quietly documenting the whole build for a future documentary — so somebody’s making sure this decade doesn’t just disappear into memory.
Colfax Skatepark: Location and Opening Date
Where is the Colfax Skatepark? The Colfax Skatepark is on Parkhill Drive, on the old pool site next to the baseball field and directly adjacent to the Lions Splash Park — about a five-minute walk from Historic Downtown Colfax.
When does the Colfax Skatepark open? No official opening date has been announced yet. New Line Skateparks’ crew is on-site through the summer of 2026, with shotcrete work ongoing as of mid-July. We’ll update this post as soon as a date is set — check back here, or follow historiccolfax.com/events for the announcement.
Why We’re Watching This One Closely
A skatepark doesn’t sound like a downtown story at first. But think about what it actually does: it gives families a reason to park on Main Street, grab lunch, browse a shop, and stay in town for the afternoon instead of just passing through on I-80. Parkhill Drive is a five-minute walk from the historic core. Every kid who shows up with a board is a parent who shows up with a wallet, and that’s the kind of foot traffic Historic Downtown Colfax has been building toward.
New Line’s crew is expected to be on-site through the summer, with more concrete work ahead before the park is skateable. Colfax Green Machine is still taking in-kind donations and cash contributions to help close it out — you can find updates and ways to help at their Facebook page, Colfax California Skatepark.
We’ll be tracking the Colfax Skatepark here as it progresses, along with everything else worth knowing about before you plan a trip to Historic Downtown Colfax. For now: there’s concrete in the bowl. After ten years, that’s the headline — and downtown Colfax just got one more reason on the list of things to see when you visit.
