Edgemont Ditch Skatepark

The first neighborhood in the country to convert a required drainage ditch into skateable public infrastructure — built by Winton Homes in the Edgemont subdivision of Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

Cities had long built concrete skateparks modeled after drainage ditches. Scott Winton asked the reverse question: what if the ditch itself became the skatepark? When planning the Edgemont subdivision in Santa Teresa — a few miles north of El Paso, governed by Sunland Park — Winton Homes was already required to build a concrete drainage structure. A conversation with Chris Najera, a local skater who had put money down on a home in the development, opened the door to something no city, county, or developer had done before.

Rather than install another poorly-built modular skatepark, Scott engaged the El Paso Skatepark Association and designer Paul Zimmerman to rethink the ditch entirely. Through a series of design meetings, Zimmerman modified the drainage template into skateable terrain — escalating 3-to-5-foot radius walls running the top 80 feet of the structure, with bowl ends positioned where water flow would not be affected. The contractor hand-stacked the radius walls over a two-week pour. When the subdivision was complete, Scott turned the structure over to the City of Sunland Park as public property. There are no signs calling it a skatepark — officially, it is a ditch.

The Edgemont Ditch drew traveling professional skaters from across the country and was named one of the Most Innovative Skateparks in the World by Complex Rides magazine. The City of El Paso took notice and began working with the EPSA to design a 4,000-square-foot skateable stilling basin on the east side of the city. What started as a drainage solution became a national model for dual-use public infrastructure.

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