Old Dew Tour Skate Bowl Still In Storage Four Years Later

OCEAN CITY — The future of the former Dew Tour skate bowl, one of the last vestiges of event last held in Ocean City in 2014 after a four-year run, was debated last week.

The Dew Tour, the wildly popular multi-sport event that included skateboarding, BMX riding and even surfing, was held in Ocean City for four years from 2011 to 2014, but the run ended amicably two years ago when the roaming event moved to other areas. Little evidence of the event’s run in the resort is left behind. The old water tower at Worcester Street adorned with the Dew Tour logo has since come down, for example.

However, essentially sitting in an Ocean City maintenance yard in West Ocean City is the iconic Dew Tour skate bowl, one of the last reminders of a popular event. The Recreation Committee last week discussed the fate of the old Dew Tour skate bowl and the options are many, but no firm decision was reached.

Councilman and committee chair Wayne Hartman said City Manager Doug Miller had reached out to the Town of Berlin to see if it had any interest in the Dew Tour skate bowl. Berlin is in the process of developing a significant park on the site of the old Tyson plan and some sort of skate park has been discussed to include in the design. However, Miller said on Tuesday Berlin will not likely become the future home of the old skate bowl.

“We reached out to Berlin to see if they wanted it,” he said. “I got the impression they weren’t interested in it.”

Ocean City is in the process of developing a master plan for its downtown parks in the area of 3rd and 4th streets including a possible expansion of the Ocean Bowl Skate Park at the site. Hartman said the Dew Tour skate bowl could become part of that final design.

“It could be incorporated into the design and marketed as both a tourist attraction and a functional skate bowl,” he said. “It’s an iconic bowl and a piece of Ocean City history.”

Recreation and Parks Director Susan Petito said there have been cursory discussions with the skating community about incorporating the Dew Tour bowl into any proposed expansion of Ocean City’s downtown skate park, but no firm consensus had been reached.

“There are mixed opinions about it,” he said. “Some are concerned about it being too high of a level for most in the skating community and some say they want it.”

Petito said another option is simply returning it to its original owner.

“We could offer it back to the Dew Tour,” she said. “If the decision was not to keep it, I could reach out to the Dew Tour folks and see if they want it back.”

Councilman and committee member John Gehrig said there was no rush to make a decision. If Berlin doesn’t want it and the Dew Tour is not interested in getting it back, it could be utilized in some future redesign of the downtown parks.

“I think we wait,” he said. “We have it and they don’t want it, so we might have some use for it when we figure out what we’re going to do with the reconfiguration of the park.”

Petito agreed there was no urgency to make a decision, but said the skate bowl would require some maintenance.

Hartman said progress on the future master plan for the downtown parks was slow in coming.

“I don’t think we’ll see a master plan for the park this year,” he said. “That whole process seems like it’s moving very slow.”

Petito said there had been community input meetings about the park redesign and even site visits.

“We went out and looked at the park,” she said. “We looked at the basketball courts and the ball fields. We decided we needed to sit down and talk about it again.”

About The Author: Shawn Soper

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Shawn Soper has been with The Dispatch since 2000. He began as a staff writer covering various local government beats and general stories. His current positions include managing editor and sports editor. Growing up in Baltimore before moving to Ocean City full time three decades ago, Soper graduated from Loch Raven High School in 1981 and from Towson University in 1985 with degrees in mass communications with a journalism concentration and history.