A Skate Shop Pops Up in Downtown Norfolk at Selden Market April 2, 2018 By Jesse Scaccia

Like75 Shae One of the latest small businesses to grace Selden Market is Skate Supply.

We tossed a few questions in the direction of the shop’s General Manager, Trey Hill. AltDaily: What is your business all about? What are your specialties? Surplus is a new division of Skate Supply, a core skateshop in Chesapeake which opened in 2004. Our goal is to supply the Hampton Roads community with a welcoming and friendly place to purchase skateboarding goods and services. We specialize in building custom complete skateboards with great customer service. We want to do away with the “cool guy” attitude that plagues many specialty retailers, and show that everyone is welcome at our shops.

Why Selden? Where do you hope to go from there? Living in Norfolk for the last five years, I have been chipping away at the idea of opening a shop closer to home. I’ve been skating in Downtown Norfolk and the surrounding areas for most of my life, so when the opportunity presented itself to open in the newly renovated Selden Market, I had to take it. The Market is beautiful, and the initiatives that the Downtown Norfolk Council and the city is making to help small businesses thrive in Norfolk is wonderful. I want us to be a part of that. We also have friends that have shops in there, so it felt natural coming into the market. Since this is our first experience with expanding our business, we are going to start small. My dream is to have a location on each side of the water to better service everyone in the Hampton Roads area.

For those not in the culture, what’s the first paragraph of the Wikipedia about skate culture in Norfolk/Hampton Roads? SKATEBOARDING IS ALIVE AND WELL IN HAMPTON ROADS! There are more skateboarders than ever here! We also have several skateparks, at least one in every city, and there are even local skaters who try and build spots for others to enjoy. Some amazing skaters have come from Hampton Roads. Should there be a skatepark in Downtown Norfolk? Do you think it would enhance or hurt tourism, and why? In my opinion, a skatepark in Downtown makes perfect sense. The city doesn’t want us skating on private property, but there is only one skatepark in Norfolk, and it’s several miles away from Downtown. The best spots to skate are in Downtown. We need an alternative. I’ve been around the country, and I’ve seen

skateparks built right in the downtown area and they are incredible! (LES Skatepark in New York City, Grant Skatepark in Chicago, Paine’s skatepark in Philadelphia). If we could give skateboarders a well built and safe space to skate, it will create an amazing alternative to keeping kids out of trouble, and off private property, and in turn, grow the culture and community. As far as tourism, having a skatepark Downtown would greatly enhance it in my opinion. We would be another step closer to becoming a destination city for for families who support or enjoy skateboard culture, or that traveling group of skaters who just have to check Norfolk’s downtown skatepark off their bucket list.