Knoxville Skatepark (Tyson Park)

A 15,000-square-foot Wally Hollyday-designed concrete skatepark in Knoxville's Tyson Park, floodlit daily until 11pm and divided into a street plaza, a 3-to-4-foot banked beginner bowl, an intermediate flow bowl, and a deep peanut pool.

Tucked behind the ballfields in Tyson Park near the Third Creek Greenway and the University of Tennessee campus, Knoxville Skatepark is a 15,000-square-foot poured-concrete facility designed by Wally Hollyday and funded with support from the Tony Hawk Foundation. Open daily from 8:00am to 11:00pm with overhead floodlighting that begins stepping down at 10:45pm, the park gives older skaters generous morning and late-evening windows. Park rules also prohibit scooters and mountain bikes—and ban BMX bikes from the pool—keeping transition lines predictable.

The concrete is divided into four progressive zones that let returning skaters build confidence without dropping into deep vert right away. You can start on the flat street plaza—equipped with mellow banks, ledges, flat rails, a Jersey barrier, a taco hip, and stairs—or step into the Banked Bowl, which pairs approachable 3-foot to 4-foot round transition, a spine, and hips with a 5-foot bank wall topped in square metal and rounded concrete lips. From there, the terrain steps up to the 5-foot to 8-foot Flow Bowl and the advanced Peanut Pool (a 6-foot shallow end dropping to a 10.5-foot deep end with 1 foot of vert and concrete pool coping). Note that Knoxville city ordinance strictly mandates a strapped helmet at all times on the concrete, waxing metal coping is prohibited, and the surface should be avoided when wet.