Memorial Skate Park, Colorado Springs, CO
Once a year we go and visit my wife’s family in Colorado Springs and our two boys get to have the time of their lives with our three nephews. Between our last July visit in 2008 and our present one- the city built a major destination skate park which after all was said and done sized in around 40,000 square feet or around three quarters the size of a football field. That’s big! The skate park started as a conversation back in 2004, hit the city radar in 2007 and was completed in March 2009. That’s fast.
With Memphis considering a couple of skate parks, including a major one on Mud Island , I thought interviewing the person that managed the Memorial project would definitively and authoritatively address some of the concerns of our own city officials.
I contacted their parks department and with only two days notice, Jeff Haley , their City Landscape architect and project manager for the skate park agreed to meet with me the day before we left to drive home to Memphis.
Here is what Jeff had to say.
Rationale for building a large park
AS: Was there as concern about having too many skate parks in the area? ( the Colorado Springs area had four existing parks before this large skate park was built )
JH: This was really never a concern once we realized that skateboarding is the baseball of today’s youth. You are probably well aware from your own efforts that nationally, skateboarding has become the third most popular activity among youth. In fact a lot of the issues we were having with skateboarding was due to its popularity.
AS: Such as ?
JH: Even with four existing skate parks, our parks we’re becoming overcrowded with skaters and we still had a large population of skaters that were skating and damaging public and private property in Downtown Colorado Springs. Our existing skate parks were not able to meet our demand and they also were not designed very well.
AS: Do you think that with this new large park, you have met the needs of the skate community?
JH: Yes for now. But, I think we could do well to build another large park perhaps half the size of the Memorial park in Northern east quadrant of the City. There are a lot of youth in that area who have to drive 15-20 miles to get to the new skate park.
AS: Did 40,000 square feet seem too big at the time ?
JH: Yes we did think that was a large chunk of concrete at the time. But now when I go to the park I am grateful we went big because every square foot of that park is covered with skateboarders, bmx bikers, roller bladers, Moms and Dad’s and their kids and spectators. Just the other day I saw three older ladies at the park watching the skateboarders in the big bowl. They looked like they had escaped from a nursing facility. They were having a great time watching the kids.
AS: I was having a conversation with the security guard at your city administration building and he actually thought the park was too small. Never thought I would hear that spoken from anyone but a skateboarder.
In part 2 we will look at how they decided on their location as well as the construction of the skate park.
