Skatepark construction company collapses

A Brisbane construction firm specialising in concrete skateparks has collapsed after almost two decades building projects around the country.

A Brisbane construction firm that has built some of the biggest skateparks around the country over the past two decades has collapsed.

Liquidator Bill Karageozis, partner at McLeod & Partners, was last week appointed administrator of Point Lookout-based Concrete Skateparks. Mr Karageozis declined to comment while investigations into the failure of the company was continuing.

Concrete Skateparks was founded by engineer and skateboarder Rob Lewers in 1994 with the company’s first project at Paddington in Brisbane. The company has since gone on to build more than 300 skateparks around the country including Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.

Skateparks, which usually consist of bowls and ramps to recreate city streetscapes, emerged in the early 1980s as a way to create safer places for young people to skate.

The company offered design, engineering and landscaping services for skateparks, which have evolved over the past two decades from small bowls to mult-milllion dollar facilities.

Mr Lewers, who started the company aged 21 and once owned a Hamilton home complete with an indoor skatebowl, has been contacted for comment. Mr Lewers sold the property in 2013 for $1.3m

The company’s website says Concrete Skateparks had “a long and proven history of building bowls from old school pools to modern day monsters.”

Mr Lewers had “been a massive part of the growth and evolution of Australian skateboarding, partnering with councils and organisations to build over 300 skateparks Australia wide.”

The company had multiple crews that travelled around Australia building some of the largest facilities in the country. Skateboarding, which is one of five new additions to the Olympic Games this year, has emerged as mainstream sport in the past few years attracting a broader demographic from teenagers to people in their 50s and 60s.