Cleveland to Build Skatepark at Luke Easter With Help From $250,000 Machine Gun Kelly Donation

For the first time in the city’s history, verts, quarter pipes and grind boxes are coming to Cleveland’s east side.

Luke Easter Park in Mount Pleasant will be home to the city’s second skatepark, a “modern concrete” space that should debut by August 2027, a City Hall spokesperson told Scene.

The $1.3-million project was pretty much finalized on Monday, when City Council submitted legislation to accept a $500,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which will be matched by the city. Machine Gun Kelly’s philanthropic arm, the MGK Foundation, will also throw in $250,000.

“This builds on multiple other investments MGK has made in the City of Cleveland,” a city spokesperson wrote Scene, referring to MGK Day, 27 Club Coffee in the Flats, and the upcoming renovation of Shooters Yacht Club, set to open next summer under new ownership.

Bringing an amenity on par with the Crooked River Skatepark, which opened in the Flats in 2014, to Luke Easter follows Mayor Justin Bibb’s intention to invest in Cleveland’s often-ignored Southeast Side on the same level as other neighborhoods.

It also checks off a box identified by the Parks and Rec department’s 15-year master plan, which called for new infrastructure to match the growing citywide interest in skateboarding—a 41 percent jump since 2020.

The master plan also listed Luke Easter as one of the city’s parks that “needs attention.”

And in need of something, any passerby might speculate. Today, Luke Easter has four basketball courts, three tennis courts, C.C. Sabathia Field, a track, a defunct pool and the Zelma George Rec Center at its geographic middle.

But around that is mostly unused grass area, used mostly by parkgoers for cookouts, weekend parties or makeshift driving ranges.

“We got to start thinking outside the box,” Ward 4 Councilwoman Deborah Gray, whose ward includes Luke Easter, told Scene in a phone call.

Gray, who was at an October 24 feedback session on skatepark design, said she hopes that the new park—especially with MGK and local skaters involved—can help battle the park’s reputation for some unfavorable behavior.

Or, at the very least, tilt teenagers away from violence.

“If kids can start coming and being with their families instead of hanging out with ruckus and loud noise and disrespecting the park,” that would be beneficial, Gray said. “So people can say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna bring my wife. I’m gonna bring my family here.’”

Three designs crafted by The Skate Park Project, a nonprofit that helps build parks in low-income areas, were shown to locals in October, Gray said. But no official design has yet been submitted to City Planning for review.

Luke Easter’s master plan also includes a new dog park, four new benches, five porta-potties, two horseshoe courts, an amphitheater, ADA-friendly exercise equipment, pickleball courts, new picnic tables and re-roofing of the park’s pavilions, Gray told Scene. It’s unclear how far along the city is with funding that list of projects.

“I’ve been in this neighborhood for 36 years; this is a positive move for us,” Gray said. “I mean, we like a lot of things on the east side—but now we’re thinking outside the box.”

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