The Erwin A. and Robert D. skate park located in Central Park is now open after several years of raising funds and design delays.

The skate park had been an idea Patrick Hasburgh, a member of the Madison Skatepark Fund for nearly 14 years when he used to skateboard with his friends, had for years.

“We were tired of being chased by the police out of places and getting tickets,” Hasburgh said. “We thought we should at least make an effort to make a public place for skate boarding that everyone could use. Once we started, everyone looked toward us to help finish the project.”

But the park could not have been possible without the many people and organizations who donated and helped raise funds to build it, Hasburgh said.

The city of Madison, which had been interested in building a skate park for several years, was one of the first contributors to the project in 2012 — donating $300,000 towards the parks fund, Madison Parks spokesperson Ann Shea said.

Other major contributors to the skate park included several foundations like the Irwin A. & Robert D. Goodman Foundation that the skate park was named after, local businesses like Willy Street Co-op and several families, Hasburgh said.

Additionally a grant that took three years to get from the Dane County Partners for Recreation & Conservation provided another $200,000 towards the project, Hasburgh said.

While raising funds for the park took time to accomplish, another delay in the skate park’s building was its design Hasburgh said.

“The design process of the park took a while because many people had different perceptions of what a skate park was, and some had no idea at all,” Hasburgh said.

But with the help of a former professional skateboarder Camden Russell, who now works for a skate park design company, a free preliminary design gave contributors and designers an idea of what a real skate park looked like, Hasburgh said.

Though the design process caused a two-year delay it allowed for more money to be raised to fund the project, which in the end came to a grand total of $1.2 million for design and construction of the skate park, Shea said.

But after what had been a long journey of raising funds and designing the skate park, the park’s opening on Sept. 10 was a great success, Hasburgh said.

About 150 to 200 people showed up on opening day. People who came to celebrate the park’s opening included donors, skateboarders and many others, Hasburgh said.

“It was wonderful and truly magical to see a day that we had all been waiting for to happen,” he said.

Hasburgh said since its opening, the park has been packed with people “shoulder to shoulder.” Estimates of the number of people who have since gone to the skate park have been around 500 people he said.

“Everyone looked like they were having lots of fun, it was great to see,” Hasburgh said.

Additional modifications to the surrounding area of the skate park are going to make the park more accessible for people to enjoy before the end of November, Shea said.