Vans Gives 1 million towards the worlds biggest park in Abu Dhabi!

[skategeezer]

Totally board

Keach Hagey

• Last Updated: July 31. 2008 3:27PM UAE / July 31. 2008 11:27AM GMT

Lippy: the skate promoter Brad Kirr dreams of building “the worlds biggest, baddest skatepark” in Dubai. Paulo Vecina / The National

Brad Kirr is standing atop the Al Mamzar Park skate bowl, the only public skateboard facility in Dubai. He squints through limited edition sunglasses (earned in a Swedish skateboarding competition in June), looking for a safe path. There’s an oil patch on one side where some cracks were recently repaired, and the punishing mid-morning heat has loosened his board’s axles, making it harder to control. A few failed attempts to stick a front-side air (that is, to turn 180 degrees while jumping over the lip of the bowl, grabbing the board with one hand and, ideally, flashing a peace sign with the other) send him tumbling down the concrete slope. Each time he picks himself up, grins and jogs back up the stairs, the upturned collar of his polo shirt still somehow standing at perfect retro-prepster attention. Just behind him, beyond the palms lining the beach, roving packs of bulldozers are building an island in the sea.
It’s entirely too hot to be skateboarding. But Kirr, a square-jawed, 31-year-old skate promoter from the US, and Maysam Faraj – a UAE native born to Syrian parents who, at a baby-faced 21, is the sport’s domestic grandfather – are determined to put on a show for the cameras. “Anything for the cause,” says Kirr, walking sweat-sodden back to his car.

“The cause” is Kirr’s mission to build the biggest skate park in the world in Dubai. That title is currently held by the SMP park in Shanghai, which covers about 45.72 sq km and cost $26 million (Dh95.5million). Through his company, Action Sports Arabia, Kirr wants to build a Dubai skate park covering 304.8 sq km. The park he envisions would cost $150m (Dh550m), but he says he could deliver the world record for a cool $50m (Dh183.5m).


Last week, he got his first million from Vans, a California-based shoe company that has sponsored punk rock festivals, skateboard competitions and even a film: the award-winning 2001 skateboarding documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys. Directed by original Z Boy Stacy Peralta, it tracks a bunch of former surfers as they forge a new sport in the empty swimming pools of Santa Monica, California. Kirr and Faraj (particularly the latter, an aspiring filmmaker) see themselves as modern-day Peraltas presiding over the birth of skateboarding in the Middle East.


American viewers got a glimpse of the UAE’s skate scene earlier this month in the FuelTV documentary Skate Arabia. Part geographical primer, part skate video, it features Faraj, Kirr and three fellow skaters grinding the stairs of Dubai’s office buildings and cruising the stone expanses of Abu Dhabi’s Corniche. (In the program, Ibrahim Wadhai, a 15-year-old Iraqi Canadian, declares that Abu Dhabi’s skate park “actually kind of sucks”, but gushes about the skaterly perfection of the adjacent Corniche).
Faraj is working on a broader documentary, Yallah Yakhi: Dubai to Baghdad, that will trace emerging skateboarding scenes throughout the Middle East. Kirr sees the region’s multicultural skateboard crews as nothing less than ambassadors of world peace. “When you go to these places, you have a very visceral interaction with the local people, because you are skating in a public place. People are curious,” he claims, “because skateboarding is this completely non-threatening sort of thing, and essentially very American.”


Talking at Gyro Shop, a restaurant near the park (the theme of which is the American town of Columbus, Ohio), Kirr and Faraj reflect on what it will take to bring skateboarding to prominence here: Middle Eastern cred and American know-how. Or maybe it’s American cred and Middle Eastern know-how. After all, it’s Faraj who describes their strategy as “stalk a sheikh.”

A sticker of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Ruler of Dubai, covers the entire back window of Kirr’s SUV. His company makes skateboards featuring His Highness’s license plate number, and his shirt bears the same logo, a rectangle surrounding the number ‘1’. “I have immense respect for Sheikh Mohammed,” Kirr says. “Someone who can create all this stuff is just unreal.”
It’s the respect of one entrepreneurial mind for another. Kirr came to Dubai two years ago after the medical distribution company he started when he was 25 “had gotten to the point where I had the freedom to be in another place, as long as I had a computer and phone”. Since then, Action Sports Arabia has become a regional engine for the sport. It is the local representative for the international governing body that sanctions the sport for both the X Games and the Olympics, and is organising a skateboarding competition in Abu Dhabi as part of October’s Adrenaline Sports Live convention.
The sheikh stalking seems to be paying off. Kirr says the municipality has offered land in Al Mamzar, Creek or Zabeel parks for the project, though it has yet to make an official announcement. He predicts that the first phase, a replica of a Southern Californian swimming pool built for Van’s Pro-Tech Pool Party competition (the Wimbledon of bowl skateboarding) will be completed sometime next year. (It’s not quite a replica of a replica, but it’s close). Assuming public funding follows, the whole park could be finished within three years. After that, says Kirr, it’s on to the rest of the region.
“Look at other Middle Eastern countries – Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia – prior to Dubai’s breakout on the scene,” Kirr says. “Most of the places, the people at the top were mostly keeping their money to themselves. It’s not until here that you really have capitalism flourishing at a really vibrant level, that they see the advantages of having this kind of stuff. So now, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi, all over the Middle East and North Africa, you have these crazy developments going. Everybody looks to Dubai as the archetype.” Plus, he adds, “It’s the modern sport. It’s what kids are into these days.”

[PMC]

SHEAT!!! Vans donating money to one of the ritchest oil country
Instead of building parks here in the states they lost my business for sure!!!

[SK1ER]

Yeah I want to go to Dubai and skate when it's 125 degrees everyday...

[Parallel Man]

Sending $1 MILLION to Dubai is like sending sand to Arabs.

I have to agree. Why didn't Vans send four $250,000 donations to local parks in this country?

There has to be some quid pro quo going on here, meaning it's not a "donation" but some kind of investment with Van's expecting a satisfying return.

By the way, what's this "45 sq. km" and "308 sq. km" stuff? Is the park in Shanghai really 17.5 SQUARE MILES? And will the park in Dubai be 119 SQUARE MILES? Man, that's a lot of concrete.

[enemy combatant]

He must be good, after all he has limited edition sunglasses!

[Speedo]

Very good points made.
They have plenty of sand, money, oil, and concrete, for that matter.

[Mile_High_Mark]

Let's not forget all the Vans skateparks here in the US that have closed down. Oh, and before said parks shut their doors, they helped to close down existing (pay-to-play) parks, or caused towns to divert dollars for skateparks, leaving people with no place to skate.

[enemy combatant]

Originally Posted by Mile_High_Mark

Let's not forget all the Vans skateparks here in the US that have closed down.

Not to mention that Vans were/are just Keds knock-offs. Thin soles, no arch support, the epitome of 1950's sneaker technology. Personally. I like skating in lightweight hiking boots and never plan to set foot in the Middle East.

[Terry Trimble]

Why would Vans do that? Dubai self bulit their formula one race track. Is trying to buy in to every formula one team they can.http://dubai-livethedream.com/dubai-formula-one.html
Formula one has a hell of lot more money involved then skateboarding.
In less Vans wants to become the Shoe of choice in Dubai or someone in Dubai is buying Vans? Stiring the pot.

[enemy combatant]

People in Dubai are buying polo shirts.

[SK1ER]

Prediction: Dubai will be a ghost city in 25 years when they run out of oil.

[Parallel Man]

Originally Posted by SK1ER

Prediction: Dubai will be a ghost city in 25 years when they run out of oil.

I don't think so.

The UAE is investing it's money wisely and turning Dubai into a huge vacation/tourist destination. Much like Monaco, their only industry in the near future will be people looki