Mount Pleasant Magazine 6.4

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things into their own hands. In 2009, they began building

their own skate park on an abandoned, contaminated

industrial site between Braswell and Milford streets in the

Charleston Neck, on property owned by the Magnolia

Company.

For a while, it seemed that skaters had found a refuge.

None of the local work crews seemed bothered at their

presence, and the police didn’t bother them. One local

contractor even began donating excess concrete from

various jobs, and the skaters learned how to create their

own ramps and bowls. Inspired by the post-apocalyptic

ambience and with a nod to non-skater T.S. Eliot, they

called the place “The Wastelands.” In early February 2010,

however, the Magnolia Company, citing liability and safety

concerns, shut down the skaters’ haven.

That, of course, was bad news, but good news was on

the way. A few months later, O’Rourke announced that his

fellow commissioners had agreed to budget $2 million to

create a massive park on land along Morrison Drive, north

of Huger Street, in the state-owned right of way below

the Ravenel Bridge. It was high time, he acknowledged, to

provide a world-class facility for one of the county’s long

underserved demographics.

North Charleston-based Hightower Construction

received the contract to oversee the park’s construction,

and it quickly subcontracted with Florida-based Team Pain

to design and build the park’s skate-related elements. The

skate-savvy knew that the addition of Team Pain to the

project meant the city was not taking half measures – TP

stands at the top of its field, having built more than 60

concrete skate parks across the United States and as far

away as Belgium.

In the six years since, however, several other obstacles

have delayed the project. In 2012, after the Ravenel Bridge

site ended up proving unworkable, a second location was

selected at 1549 Oceanic St., also in the Neck. Adjacent to

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