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Josh Dodson, a Champaign resident, plays a skateboarding game in the front of Board Boutique. (Tom Root, Buzz Photographer)

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Dustin Stuart reclines on the sleek leather couch and watches as his business partner, Rob Nordine, plays Skate, the Xbox 360 game, on the flat screen television in their new skateboarding lifestyle store, Board Boutique, 702 S. Neil St. in Champaign.

Stuart, 25, and Nordine, 26, are major players in the CU skateboarding scene who decided to fulfill their lifelong dreams of opening a skate shop after establishing a successful local skateboarding company, Kolor Skateboards.

Stuart and Nordine say they are not just setting out to sell t-shirts, boards, and skate videos at Board Boutique. Their goal is to turn their love of skateboarding into a full-time job instead of a weekend hobby, and transform the dismal local skate scene into a thriving Midwestern skate community.

“We’re going to re-release skateboarding in this town,” says Stuart.

The store is in its first week of business and still smells of fresh paint. Grass green walls are the backdrop for skateboarding t-shirts, hats and zip-up sweatshirts with signature geometric designs. Dark, inlayed shelves display colorful skateboards and wide-soled skate shoes.

Six weeks ago, none of this existed. The shop was an empty, run-down office space and Stuart and Nordine were just two high-school drop-outs with a dream. But these guys didn’t go from skating rails to selling shoes overnight. The dream has been a long time in the making.

In 2005, Stuart created a small Champaign-based company called Kreme Skateboards and started selling boards out of the trunk of his car. The underground business caught on among a core group of local skaters, and Stuart and his friends became known as “The Kreme Guys” around town. The Kreme Guys traveled around the country and skated in other Midwestern cities like St. Louis, Louisville, Ky., and Chicago. Stuart and his crew were living the skateboarding lifestyle. Kreme was beginning to gain recognition in national skateboarding magazines, and even cutting into skateboard sales of other local businesses. Wild Country, an established sporting goods store in Champaign, discontinued the sale of skateboards after Kreme’s success.

“I knew that the next step was opening up a shop,” says Stuart.

In October 2007, a French skateboarding company called Creme approached Stuart and asked him to change Kreme’s name, since it was already taken. Stuart decided to change the company’s name to Kolor and make Nordine his business partner after the two became close friends over the summer.

Stuart and Nordine had both dreamed of opening up a skate shop, and after joining forces, they decided that the combination of Nordine’s business sense and Stuart’s creativity was a cosmic connection.

“Two people with the same dream aligned,” says Stuart. “We’re leaning on each other to help each other out.”

In January 2008, the two viewed the building that is now home to Board Boutique and knew that the property on Neil Street, across from the sporting goods store they’d put out of the skateboarding business, was the right spot to build their dream shop.

Stuart and Nordine rented the space and started renovation with the money they made from Kolor. With the help of skateboarder friends Adam Karch, Matt Drew, and many others, they transformed the space into the sleek, boutique-style skate shop in only six weeks.

“We couldn’t have done it without our friends,” says Stuart. “There were days when we had 10 people in here working.”

Andrew Park, a 19-year-old graphic designer, designed Board Boutique’s logo. The shop’s custom woodwork was done by 20-year-old Drew, a long-haired skateboarder who happened to be laid-off from his job when Stuart and Nordine needed a carpenter.

“We took this shop as a work of art,” says Stuart.

Board Boutique celebrated its grand opening March 15, and in the first week of business exceeded the financial goals Nordine and Stuart set for the first two months, solely thanks to word-of-mouth advertising.

It is now the only skate shop in Champaign-Urbana. In the ’90s, a number of skate shops opened in Champaign, including Big Wheel, which was located on Walnut Street in Champaign. But by ’98, Big Wheel had folded and CU skaters were left without a shop to call their own.

“I grew up going to those shops,” says Stuart.

But Stuart says it’s his and Nordine’s pre-existing relationship with the skate community that will give Board Boutique the staying power the other shops lacked.

“We all skate,” he says. He turns around and points to each guy in the room. “He skates, he skates, and he skates.”

Skateboarder and Board Boutique customer Matt Farrell, 21, says he decided to check out Board Boutique because it was a place to meet up with other skateboarders and get the equipment that he needed.

“I learned Dustin was opening a shop when I bought a board from (Kolor),” says Farrell. “They have experience and know what they’re doing. It’s cool to sit there and watch skate videos and talk to skaters.”

Farrell has already bought a pair of brown Supra skate shoes from the store and says he will continue shopping there in the future.

Stuart says the shop plans to cater to skateboarders like Farrell by carrying exclusive skateboarding gear and adding community-oriented features to the store. He says they will soon be adding a community wall where skaters can let each other know when they are traveling to different cities to skate. Stuart also wants to create a “spot bible,” documenting every place to skate in CU. In the future, customers will be able to shop on Board Boutique’s Web site (boardboutique.com) and browse the store’s inventory.

He hopes Board Boutique will spark a revival of the lagging skate scene in CU.

“This town needs a freaking skate scene,” says Stuart.

In recent years, Stuart has been the organizer of Champaign Park District’s Skate Fest. This year the event will take place on May 17 at the skate park in Spalding Park in Champaign. Although the event is meant to encourage young kids to try skateboarding, he says the design of the skate park is dangerous for beginners.

“If you want to die, go to our skate park,” says Stuart. “Little kids can’t learn there. Everything flows toward the middle.”

Stuart says this design has been a recipe for collisions. But since the skate park is one of the only places authorized for skateboarding in town, it hurts the growth of the sport.

“It puts a damper on the skate scene when little kids are scared to go,” Stuart says.

He says he hopes the city will consider rebuilding the park in the future.

In the next year, Stuart, a budding videographer and editor, plans to film a community skate video that will include tricks from a number of local skateboarders. For skateboarders, skate videos are inspiration for the next big trick, a sign of growth and progression.

Board Boutique is currently selling copies of Stuart’s latest DVD, Having Fun Yet?, for $10. The DVD features local skateboarders skating both familiar locations, such as Merry-Ann’s Diner in downtown Champaign and the Six Pack, and skating spots around the country.

Nordine and Stuart say that although the shop has been cutting into their skateboarding time recently, they’re still ecstatic about owning a business that they are so passionate about.

“My whole life I’ve been waiting for something like this,” says Nordine. “It gets me pumped up getting them pumped up.”

Stuart says he couldn’t agree more.

“I found my whole place in life because of a piece of wood with some skates on it,” he says. “This is my life. I love this shit.”