Black Diamond Owner Carves Out Main Street Niche

Seven years ago, Dan McCollister traded in the wheels of trucks for the ball bearings of skateboards, and decided to turn a childhood hobby into a lucrative business. 

"From the age of 12, I did the grunt work, like picking up trash and helping out around the yard,” says McCollister, 38, on working for his family’s business, McCollister's Transportation Group, for 10 years, and the place where he honed his entrepreneurial skills. 

McCollister left the family business in 2005 and opened Black Diamond Mountain Sports in Larchmont Commons in Mount Laurel, selling skateboard equipment and clothes, as well as merchandise for other extreme sports like skiing, skating, biking, surfing and climbing. 

“I wanted to offer a market that I didn’t see in the area,” says the Southampton resident.

By 2006, Vans, the clothing and sneaker company, was looking to exit its operation of an indoor skatepark at the Moorestown Mall. McCollister bought it, renamed it Black Diamond Skatepark, and continued providing a safe haven for board enthusiasts to roll and romp.

But this spring, the ever-popular indoor park was shuttered. 

With the legalization of liquor, route: {:controller=>"articles", :action=>"show", :id=>"yes-wins"} --> last year in Moorestown, PREIT (Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust), owners of the mall, decided to rebrand the mall and are planning to and  in what used to be the Garth Davidson Gallery, next to . The