NEWMAN – Plans for the development of a community skate plaza moved forward with a development and design meeting held at the youth center in early November. Representatives from Spohn Ranch, the company contracted to design and build the plaza, met with local skaters as well as community members to gain insight into what features are essential in the project.
The city hopes to build a skate plaza where the Newman Plunge once stood, near the L.J. Newman Memorial Building and Matteri Field.
Jason Baldessari, who designs features and skate plazas for Spohn Ranch, a sub-contractor to O’Dell Engineering on the skate park planning, presented the company’s philosophy of design as being locally focused and attractive to the community.
“Our goal is to make each plaza a community space where skating can become a bit of a spectator sport,” Baldessari explained. “We try to incorporate the overall look of the community we’re building for so that the plaza ties into the local landscape.”
In addition to a focus on community aesthetics, Baldessari emphasized the need for individuality in each design.
“Skate parks and plazas, for a long time, were built as a concrete slab with maybe one or two homemade ramps the skaters brought in themselves. We try to move past that with every park we build,” Baldessari noted. “We don’t want this plaza to look like the one down the street; we want it to have its own identity.”
Skaters and community members voiced their opinions regarding features in the plaza through a survey given by Spohn Ranch and were given the opportunity to sketch their own layouts on a scale map of the construction site.
Skaters at the meeting requested more street-style features such as rails and box-style ramps rather than the more traditional vertical ramps and half-pipes. The idea of a skateboard/BMX trail around the perimeter of the park was offered as a well, but drew concerns about potential conflicts with Matteri Field activity and obscured sight lines.
Other ideas about the overall landscaping of the park were offered including locations of trees and plants within the park.
“This phase of what we do is really the key for us,” Baldessari commented. “We’re able to get a feel for what the kids would like to see in the plaza. We’re able to get a better idea for what we need to include in our proposal.”
Baldessari noted that part of the design process is for Spohn Ranch to generate a virtual layout of the park which the client “tours” before construction.
“We make a computer model of the plaza and that lets us see everything as it will look after we build it,” he explained. “This lets us look at all the sight lines in the park and make sure that things meant to be hidden from a certain area are out of view, as well as what the park looks like from various angles.
Recreation Coordinator Stephanie House called the meeting a success noting that the cross-generational audience responded well to the process.
“It was great to see these kids connecting with a group of adults over a shared love of their sport,” House explained. “Skaters don’t often have a voice in the community and by allowing them to have input into what they were going to be getting out of this process was a big thing for everyone.”
Although attendance at the meeting was a bit small for a project of this size, House was pleased that the youth and community members who attended were able to express their ideas.
The small-group setting was conducive for the skaters to share their thoughts on what features they want incorporated into a skate plaze.
“I’ve told them all along that this meeting was a time for them to tell everyone what they want to see built and it was really easy for them to do that in a smaller group,” House commented.
The city is cobbling together a variety of funding sources for the skate plaza. To date, the city has set aside $105,000 in one-time grant funds and added another $10,000 in municipal funds. The city has also landed a $5,000 Tony Hawk Foundation grant and more recently a $2,000 grant from PGE. Local fund-raiser efforts spearheaded by skaters have raised approximately $4,000 as well.
The consultant will develop cost estimates on a skate plaza as well as conceptual plans. Another community meeting will be held when conceptual designs are completed.
Speak Your Mind