EVERETT — Skateboarders on the north end of Everett probably will have to wait four years for a skate park of their own. But when it’s built, it may be adaptable enough to be reconfigured easily or even moved to other parks.
The parks department built the city’s first and only skate park at Walter E. Hall Park in south Everett in 1999 for $204,000.
A 2000 master plan for Wiggums Hollow Park in north Everett called for construction of a skate park there. But there hasn’t been enough money in the city budget to build it, parks director Susan Francisco said.
The current plan is to spend $12,000 on a design for the skate park next year and wait until 2007 to build it.
The city’s looking at building a modular skate park that can be disassembled.
"They can be reconfigured to make them more interesting for the kids, and we could even move them from park to park, depending on the need," she said.
Such a park at Wiggums Hollow would cost about $20,000, said Hal Gausman, project manager and landscape architect for the parks department.
"This is a very big sport, and we have to figure a way to help these kids out," he said. "Our big issue is coming up with funding. We have so many needs out there."
Parks commissioner Randy Ayers said many skateboarders in north and central Everett have a hard time getting to the Walter E. Hall skate park and instead use city streets and parks.
"In order to perform many of their tricks, they use picnic tables or hand railings or whatnot, and in some cases, that destroys them, defaces them and scrapes the paint," Ayers said. "And there’s definitely a safety factor. Handrails and picnic tables were not designed for that use."
Ayers’ 9-year-old son Riley is a budding skateboarder, and he said he’d welcome a skate park at Wiggums Hollow, which is less than a mile from where he lives.
"It would be cool," Riley said.
Modular skate parks are usually made with wood or steel frames and have a high-tech plastic surface.
The Walter E. Hall skate park, which is made of concrete, "is very heavily used," said Councilman Bob Overstreet, who during Wednesday night’s council meeting asked Francisco about progress on building a skate park. "There’s obviously not the money there now to construct a new park, but I would certainly hope things turn around so we can accelerate the schedule some."
Most new skate parks are modular, primarily because they’re quicker and cost less to put up, said Heidi Lemmon, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Skatepark Association of the U.S.A. There are now about 2,000 public and 500 private skate parks in the country — and at least 1,000 more on the drawing board, she said.
Some of the less expensive parks are barely used, she said.
"Modular parks can be amazing," Lemmon said, "but if a city is looking at it for the wrong reasons as a cheap, quick fix, that’s what they’re going to get."
Reporter David Olson:
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