All types of man-powered wheels are welcome at Utah’s “ultimate destination for non-motorized wheeled recreation,” including skateboards, bikes, wheelchairs, roller blades and more.

The first of its kind in Utah, the West Jordan Wheels Park and hundreds of people celebrated the grand opening of its first phase on Saturday, Oct. 12 with free snow cones, food trucks, prizes and more.

As part of the wheeled portion of the larger park, the roughly 153,000-square-foot park portion features grindable I-beams, a large street plaza and more.

The all-wheels park is part of the larger Ron Wood Park located at 8600 S. and Ron Wood Park Road, east of the pickleball fields. Different park features will expand across 95 acres including new soccer fields just to the west of the wheels park that will start construction next year, followed by a recreation center and multiple bike trails.

“This larger area will become a regional recreation complex that will draw people from all over Salt Lake County,” Korban Lee said, West Jordan’s chief administrative officer. “We’re very, very excited about that.”

West Jordan resident Bruce Johnson and his family live about half a mile from Ron Wood Park and are frequent visitors to the pickleball courts and bike trails through the park.

“We’re really waiting for the overpass to open,” Johnson said, “so we don’t have to worry about Bangerter Highway—crossing Bangerter with a bike is treacherous.”

The park received funding primarily from West Jordan City in partnership with Rio Tinto Kennecott and from the Utah Office of Outdoor Recreation, but is expected to draw in crowds from across Salt Lake County.

Lee said it was a community-wide effort to get the park to what it is today and what it will be.

Local skaters and skater groups, such as the Utah Skate Park Advocacy Group, Northwest Skater and West Jordan residents, helped design and contributed to the park’s unique features.

“The reason we have a wheels park is because a young man came…to several meetings and said [it] was needed in our area,” Councilmember Kayleen Whitelock said at the Oct. 9 city council meeting.

Lee made sure to point out to the crowd of hundreds the similarities between the park’s slopes and Kennecott Mine’s slopes that can be seen to the southwest.

“The skate park has a lot of unique elements,” he said. “That rainbow rail, that’s the only one I know of in the entire world has a feature like that… and we put a skate bowl in the back of a dump truck bed, how cool is that?”

Additionally, the park features the only beginner pump track in Utah where “you can practice and learn on the beginner pump tracks to the intermediate-advanced pump track.” This allows for wheelers of all skill levels to use the park.

Riverton residents Kaysem Johnson and Erica Harris both attended the grand opening with two children under 5-years-old, who they’re excited to introduce to the beginner-level part of the skatepark. Johnson called it “another opportunity for them to get out of the house and have fun outside on their bikes and push their skills.”

“It’s another type of community that we don’t really have where we live,” Harris said. “They have a small bike park over there but nothing this big that will allow them to advance levels.” λ