Llewellyn Werner, the chairman of the Los Angeles, California based Customized Cooperative Capital LLC, announced in April that he would be spending a half-billion dollars building “a massive U.S.-style amusement park” in downtown Baghdad on the grounds of the old Baghdad Zoo, according to a story in the Globe and Mail.
Phase one of that project is to introduce skateboarding to Iraqi youth according to a story in Denver’s Westword. Werner plans to install “pocket parks” from Freshparks in neighborhoods around Baghdad and equip them with free skateboards thanks to help from Globe.
Werner estimates that he’ll spend a million dollars on the pocket parks and boards, which will be available to Iraqis free of charge. He considers that amount a relatively low-cost “down-payment” that will allow him to solicit support for BZEE, his multimillion-dollar entertainment zone. If he can show skeptical investors and wary locals that something as brazenly Western as a skateboard park can be successful in Iraq, then why not an American-style amusement park? But the rides and attractions themselves are just an incentive for something larger: the real estate around the park that Werner retains the rights to develop under his lease with the city.
The first skatepark has been set up for over a month, however, no one used it thanks to the Muslim holiday Ramadan and “daytime temperatures into the 110s.” But the park is scheduled to have it’s grand opening this week. It will be interesting to see how that goes.
Skateboarding will definitely give Iraqi kids a reason to look forward to tomorrow.
[Link: Westword]
