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The county parks department plans to build a skate spot in the downtown Silver Spring neighborhood of Woodside Urban Park in a move that could take dozens of young skateboarders off the busy streets of downtown Silver Spring and put them in the neighboring park instead.

Area police and security guards have long advocated for a skate park near downtown Silver Spring, said MacDonald Davis, a member of Silver Spring's Clean and Safe Team who regularly patrols the downtown streets on his bike.

"Then if they have nowhere to go, they join gangs," he said. "That's what we're trying to avoid."

He said most skateboarders bring their boards out in the early evening, just as masses of people are emerging from the Metro station into the busy intersection of Colesville Road and Georgia Avenue. This creates a safety hazard for people on and off wheels, and shooing the skaters away means they just migrate to another place in downtown Silver Spring, Davis said.

For once, the skaters agree with the police and security guards with whom they're usually at odds.

"There are so many skateboarders around here," said Montgomery Blair High School senior Devin Pea, 17, who was attempting to skate with Blair classmate Jeremy Lebow, 17, last week on the stairs of the Silver Spring Metro Plaza on Colesville Road. "We've been trying to get a skate park somewhere in Silver Spring for, like, many years now."

Davis said the hot spots for skaters are the first level of an office building on the corner of Georgia and Wayne avenues, the Discovery Place courtyard on Georgia Avenue and near the south end of the Silver Spring Metro on East-West Highway and Colesville.

If they had a skate spot, like the 3,000-square-foot one proposed for Woodside Urban Park at Spring Street and Georgia Avenue, it would be a safer situation for all involved, Davis said.

"It creates a central place where they could gather," he said.

The skate spot is now in its planning stages. It will have concrete street-style obstacles on a concrete pad and sit on the former paddle-tennis court between the gymnasium and the basketball court at Woodside Urban Park. It is expected to be finished in January.

During the construction, planners will also renovate the playground near First Avenue and Spring Street, and a permanent skate facility will be considered as part of the overall renovation plan for the entire park, which will begin to be formulated in the coming months.

Last week, Pea and Lebow dodged a constant stream of pedestrians as they vaulted down the stairs at Metro Plaza and onto the sidewalk. But in addition to pedestrians, the skateboarders also had to be on the lookout for the inevitable security guard who would end their fun.

Sure enough, after about 30 minutes of skating, a Metro Plaza security guard belted out: "Hey, this is private property! Y'all gotta leave."

The boys pleaded for one last jump, and security guard James McNeil obliged. Like Davis, he's sympathetic to the skaters' plight, but the security of his customers takes first priority, he said.

"I'll have to call my manager and say somebody got kicked down," McNeil said.

Although the new skate spot might spare the pedestrians of downtown Silver Spring, it could create a whole new dilemma for the relatively quiet neighborhood of Woodside Park.

"It's too densely populated an area for that tennis court to be turned into the kind of amenity that would draw so many people doing high-speed skating," said Woodside Park resident Judith Dietz.

The president of Woodside Park Civic Association, Barbara Ditzler, declined to comment on the proposed skate spot.

But others see it as the right thing to do.

"I think it's a great idea," said Woodside Park resident Gordie Brenne. "I know many communities have successfully done this, and I can't think of any reasons why we shouldn't. ... I see these kids all the time ... looking for places to do their thing."

There will be a public meeting at 7 p.m. Nov. 4 at the Park and Planning Headquarters in downtown Silver Spring, 8787 Georgia Ave., to discuss the proposed skate spot. Community members are invited to attend and share their input.

Correction: the original version of this story gave an incorrect time for the public meeting.