Shuttered Skate Park Seeks Community Support During Coronavirus

LAKE BLUFF, IL — More than a month after being forced to shutter by the statewide stay-at-home order issued in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the owners of a local skate park have turned to online fundraising in an effort to stay afloat through its upcoming 10th anniversary.

Jeff Conyers, of Gurnee, founded Asylum Skatepark after moving back to Illinois from Florida several years earlier. Conyers was born in Chicago but grew up skating in the Tampa area. After serving four years in the U.S. Air Force, he went on to manage the Sanctuary Skate Park in Naples, Florida.

"There was no skate parks in the 90s," Conyers, 42, told Patch. "We had fought all throughout my middle school and high school years to get these parks built, and by the time of my first year in the military they finally started building them in 1996-97."

After spending about five years managing the skate park in Naples and five more working as a personal trainer in the Chicago area, Conyers and his wife, Bennie, opened the doors to their skate park at 29850 N. Skokie Highway in unincorporated Lake Bluff in June 2010.

"We basically started from nothing and now we're doing world-renowned events at my skate park. We do summer camps for the kids, we have all these special programs where we teach toddlers how to skateboard, we've jumped leaps and bounds from 2010," Conyers said.

In 2019, for the first time, the Damn Am skateboarding circuit was held at Asylum Skatepark instead of downtown Chicago. Conyers said he expects it will be cancelled this year. Everything but online skate shop sales with curbside pickup has been closed since March 17 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"What's really sad is this is our busy time of year, when it's raining and it's cold," Conyers said. "So we've lost out on all the revenue in the rest of March, all the revenue in April and now we're going to lose all the revenue in May. You're talking money that carries us through June, July, August and September."

The skate park has laid off his two full and five part-time employees but hopes to reopen in June, Conyers said. He said he was willing to limit occupancy to whatever social distancing guidelines state public health officials require.

"It's kind of hard to figure out exactly where we do fall," he said. "I wish we could fall under the same category as the golf courses."

Other nearby businesses who rent property, including an ice arena, turf field and martial arts studio have also been ordered shut. According to Conyers, the property owner has not offered any rent abatement. Lake County property records show the property was acquired by Thompson Associates in 2004 and is currently held by a trust.

Likewise, no financial relief has been forthcoming from the federal or state governments, according to Conyers.

"We've applied for the economic injury disaster loan. Hadn't hurt a word. Every time we call, they say you're still in queue, then they ran out of money, so it's a mess, man, it's a complete mess," he said.

The skatepark would bring back some or all of its employees if it could secure an loan from one of the new emergency programs, Conyers said.

"We're not getting anything," he said. "My and my wife and my two kids, we're just surviving on what we have saved."

So the Conyerses started an online fundraiser on GoFundMe, a Patch promotional partner, in an effort to help cover their approximately $50,000 in expenses through the end of May, when Gov. J.B. Pritzker's latest extended stay-at-home executive order is due to expire. In its first week, more than 60 people had donated more than $2,600 to the effort.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Patch is offering a free online directory of local businesses and merchants to notify the community of changes to operations or services. Business owners can find out more or add their businesses to the directory.