51.5 F
Laguna Hills
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
-Advertisement-

Maloof Eyes Surf City for Possible Skatepark

The Maloof family, billionaire owners of the Sacramento Kings and Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, is seeking an Orange County site to build a skatepark for its annual Maloof Money Cup skateboarding contest.

The family hopes to have a skatepark ready by next summer, according to Joe Maloof, who heads Santa Monica-based Maloof Skateboarding LLC.

The company has looked at a number of sites, including the Great Park in Irvine and the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa.

The family’s Maloof Money Cup has been held at the fairgrounds since its inaugural 2008 contest. Skateboarding ramps, courses and other facilities are put up and torn down each year.

Huntington Beach

A site in Huntington Beach is looking like a leading contender for a permanent 16,000-square-foot skatepark that would host the annual contest. An environmental study is in the early stages.

The contest “will always be in Orange County. That’s where it was born,” said Joe Maloof, who spends about 10 days out of each month here.

The Maloof Money Cup is a multiday, professional and amateur skateboarding contest for men and women. Individual prizes of $100,000 and a total purse of $800,000 in cash and prizes are up for grabs, making it one of the most lucrative contests in skateboarding.

A permanent home for the event could be built with Cypress-based Vans Inc., a maker of shoes and clothing inspired by skateboarding and operator of two skateparks, including one in Orange.

“They’re a huge sponsor for us,” Maloof said of Vans.

A unit of North Carolina’s VF Corp., Vans helped sponsor a skatepark in New York built for an expansion of the Maloof Money Cup there.

New York’s Adopt-a-Park program also helped pay for the skatepark, which now is run by the city’s parks and recreation department.

Maloof said he hopes to get private and public funding for skateparks in other cities in the next couple of years.

The plan is to build parks for contests and then open the sites to the public the rest of the time, Maloof said.

For the past three years, Maloof Skateboarding has put up a temporary skatepark at the fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. It takes six days to build the park and costs about $300,000.

The park then gets torn down.

“We just can’t afford to tear it down anymore,” Maloof said. “I don’t mean that financially.”

Maloof, a skateboarding fan, said that to tear it down “makes you sick to your stomach.”

“I’m never tearing down another park,” he said.

The fairgrounds would like to keep the Maloof Money Cup, said Steven Beazley, chief executive of the OC Fair & Event Center.

“The Maloof Money Cup has been top notch in terms of quality,” he said. “You always want to partner with quality events.”

But a drawn-out, pending sale of the state-owned fairgrounds has been an issue because the center can’t sign any long-term contracts, Beazley said.

The fairgrounds is in the process of being sold for $96 million to the city of Costa Mesa and Costa Mesa-based Facilities Management West Inc., which hopes to expand the number of events at the site but can’t strike any deals until it actually owns the fairgrounds.

“We certainly would understand if (Maloof Skateboarding has) to make other decisions because of our uncertainty,” Beazley said.

An average skatepark costs about $25 to $35 per square foot to build, according to Joe Ciaglia, chief executive of Upland-based California Skateparks Inc., which designs and builds parks for the Maloofs. Ciaglia’s company also built Tony Hawk’s backyard skatepark.

Maloof has looked at several possible sites for parks, according to Ciaglia.

“He’s really into it,” he said.

Along with OC and New York, Maloof also is looking to hold contests next year in Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C.

Another potential site is Maloof’s hometown of Albuquerque.

Next fall, the contest is set to expand to South Africa, where Maloof Skateboarding is building a permanent park.

Officials from 27 cities have inquired about bringing the contest to their areas, according to Maloof.

Maloof said he’s put about $7 million into his skateboarding venture so far.

“It’s been a huge investment,” he said. “I do expect to eventually make money.”

The contests now are profitable but proceeds are reinvested, Maloof said.

Sponsors

Along with Vans, the Maloof Money Cup has drawn some big sponsors, including: Carpinteria-based CKE Restaurants Inc.’s Carl’s Jr., Costa Mesa-based Volcom Inc., Monster Beverage Co., part of Corona’s Hansen Natural Corp., and Canada’s Spin Master Ltd.’s Tech Deck.

Maloof’s ties to Carl’s Jr. go back to a commercial for the restaurant chain he did with brothers Gavin Maloof and George Maloof eating messy burgers with wine at their Palms hotel.

Maloof has other skateboarding projects in the works, including Maloof Money Cup clothing and a smartphone app called SkateHub.

He said he also wants to help promote high school skateboarding teams, something Costa Mesa schools have started doing.

Maloof picked OC for the first contest because it’s a hub of skateboarding. He picked the fairgrounds because he wanted a place that drew a lot of people.

The local Maloof Money Cup is run from apartments the family owns in Irvine.

The Maloofs started out in New Mexico as a distributor of Coors beer, a business founded by Joe Maloof’s grandfather. The family business later expanded into hotels, banking and sports team ownership.

Maloof said he brings the family’s business principles to the skateboarding venture.

“There is a face behind the Maloof Money Cup—the Maloof family,” he said. “Kill yourself for the customer. The lost art in this day and age is service.”

Skateboarders in the family’s contests are treated like rock stars, rather than “nobodies,” he said.

“It’s just like in the NBA,” Maloof said. “It’s not the owners. It’s not the coaches. The players are the celebrities.”

Want more from the best local business newspaper in the country?

Sign-up for our FREE Daily eNews update to get the latest Orange County news delivered right to your inbox!

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-