The authors 4 year son does his first "rock-to-fakie" at Colorado Springs Memorial Skate park
In this post we continue our conversation with Jeff and talk about how the City of Colorado Springs chose the location for its destination skate park, how the location has brought new participants into the park and why extending hours to night operations were important.
Choice of Location
AS: How did the city come to chose Memorial park as the final location? I lived in the Springs in the 90’s and have fond memories of that park. What a great choice.
JH: There were a number of reasons why Memorial became the park of choice. In 2006 we started a new public master planning process for that park so we already were looking for public input for that area. This park was also close enough to Downtown so our hopes were that park would draw most of the skateboarders away from downtown to the new park. Which it has. Memorial park is a community park that has many activities to chose from so we wanted to put the skate park in a visible place where there were already a lot of people around using the park.
AS: That makes sense- the more eyes watching the safer the park will be.
JH: Exactly.
Reaching inner city kids
AS: Was there any issues raised with having a low-income neighborhood near the skate park?
JH: There were some concerns from some parents that would be driving the kids from some higher income areas of the city but these concerns were quickly dissolved when the park opened. They were unfounded.
AS: Personally, I was deeply gratified to see the park so accessible to so many low-income kids. It’s part of our organization’s mission to bring skateboarding to inner city areas of Memphis.
JH: Yes, this has been one of the more rewarding aspects of this project. There is such a large diversity of skate park users.
AS: I guess it goes to show, “if you build it they will come” especially when you see new kids skating who have never had access to a skate park.
JH: We’re reaching kids who are at risk of obesity, you know, the kids sitting home playing video games.
AS: Yeah, like Tony Hawk Skate. Except now they can out do it for real!
AS: So would you consider this new park a regional or destination park?
JH: Yes, this is our big park and it has users visiting from all over the U.S.
Small Parks accessible for neighborhood kids
AS: How about smaller skate parks for beginners and kids that can’t get to the bigger park everyday?
JH: Back in 2004 we started putting pre-fab ramps in neighborhood parks. In addition to our four larger parks, we have about five of these in the city. They are not much, just a half-pipe and maybe a rail and a few small boxes or smaller ramps.
AS: Not concrete?
JH: No the ramps are steel and some skaters have complained about the quality but for beginners they work quite well. As the skaters get better and older they can drive with their friends to Memorial or to the mid-sized concrete parks.
AS: How was this project completed so fast? I hear it started in 2007 and was finished 2009.
JH: I joined Colorado Springs parks and recreation in 2005 but initial conversations for the park started back in 2004. There were a number of things that really got the ball rolling. We were re-master planning Memorial park, which really was just looking at the existing space and seeing what else we could fit into the park. The park is already pretty packed with stuff. A tennis complex came up but we already had tennis courts and 12-15 skateboarders started showing up at the meetings and brought up the idea of a skate park. That was just part of it. Another factor that weighed in was the Downtown business community. They were tired of all the skateboarders damaging their property and when the skating community suggested the skate park idea it seemed a perfect fit for dealing with two needs.
AS: Any other factors?
JH: I had colleagues putting articles on my desk all the time that espoused all the great benefits of a skate park for a community. Also, the national statistics and our overcrowded parks provided ample evidence for the need for a larger park.
AS: How important were site visits?
JH: Site visits were critical for showing us what well-designed parks looked like and helped us appreciate why our existing parks were not meeting the needs of the skate community. In particular, one of the Denver parks officials cued us into how these parks have become major people magnets and helped add to the liveliness of the Denver downtown area. Once the skate park became the main contender, the momentum really took off as our parks grant writer, Amy Cox, landed $700K from private funding for the park which included funding from a car dealer ship, the Denver Broncos, the Colorado Lottery and the rest was made up with TOPS money. TOPS is a 1/10 a 1% sales tax that was approved by the voters for exclusively funding Colorado Springs recreational projects. For people to tax themselves tells you a lot about how our citizens value their quality life in terms of recreation.
Design and build of the park
AS: Did Team Payne design and build the park?
JH: They did all of the concrete work with their own team that they brought in for the year. We did have our own city contractors do the preliminary grading and digging for the site. That allowed the $1 million raised for the park to be used exclusively for building skate able space. Their team were like artists when it came to shaping and forming curves into the concrete. Did you think they did a decent job?
AS: They did a fantastic job. Any type of bumps in the curves of the concrete spell disaster, in terms of safety, for the rider. I have ridden the entire park and there are no bumps in the transitions. Nice work!
Lighting
AS: I noticed you just got the lights turned on this week for night skating. Why the delay?
JH: We wanted to first see how successful the park was and go from there. The big push for the lighting came from skateboarders that wanted to skate after work.
AS: I skated the other night and there were 100+ people out there at 10:30 pm. Incredible. What did it cost?
JH: We got a great bid at $90K. We expected closer to $150K.
AS: Any resistance for pushing for this?
JH: Not after we saw how many people were using this park and the need from working skateboarding folks.
