By Katie Ryan
The local skateboarding community is breathing a resounding sigh of relief.
The new skateboard park is one step, or rather push, closer to being a reality, now that the city is preparing tendering documents for its development at the Common Wealth Centre.
“It’s exciting to hear that it’s been passed to build it,” said Ian McCoy, chairman of the Lloydminster Skateboard Committee, following Tuesday’s city council meeting.
McCoy and others in the skateboard community have spent years working towards a new park for the hundreds of skateboarders, bikers and inline skaters in the Border City.
Currently Bud Miller Park offers a small, chain-link fenced skate park complete with ramps, but with the city’s help skateboarders will soon have more room for ollies, boardslides and other skating maneuvers.
“Without city council it probably wouldn’t have went, there hasn’t been a big support for it. It’s kind of an individual sport and without these guys (council) jumping on board it was pretty scary,” said McCoy, adding it has also taken time to dispel popular misconceptions associated with youth who skateboard.
“Skateboarders and bikers have had a bad rap over the years and I think the last five, six years bringing that to everybody’s attention that they are just normal kids, I think has turned the tables a bit. Six years ago I think I was wasting my time, until now and that it’s finally come together.
“I think people just realize that they are just normal kids, not the hoodlums that everybody thinks.”
McCoy estimated upwards of 600 skateboarders, bikers and inline skaters, who he calls “steady users,” will access the new park, which will be located at the CWC, west of the retention pond.
“It’s going to be intricate,” said director of parks and recreation, Corwin McCullagh of the new parks’ design. “It’s going to be challenging and obviously it should drive a lot of foot traffic to the CWC for kids that BMX and skateboard.”
In August the city purchased the new skate park’s plans from New Line Skateboard Parks, for an estimated $13,500.
Administration aims to have the tender out in time for summer construction.
The city has already received calls from several local companies with backgrounds in skate park design and construction, inquiring about the new park, added McCullagh.
While there was a call to review the feasibility of a St. Thomas School/ Lions Park location, the CWC was selected due to its available services, visibility, proximity to residential areas and parking.
“Because all of the amenities are at the Multiplex it makes sense to have it there. These kids don’t go skate for an hour, they go skate for four or five or 10 hours. Having it there, the bathrooms are there, the restaurant – all of the amenities are there,” said McCoy.
The skate park is being funded with the $2.4 million earlier allotted by the Alberta Government’s Major Communities Facility Program grant to finish the surrounding components of the CWC, private donation and fundraising by the Skateboard Committee.
Administration is assessing the travel patterns of skateboarders and utilization expected if the ramps in Bud Miller Park were relocated to the north east quadrant of the city. McCullagh said whether or not the present skate park will be closed or moved has yet to be decided and depends on the recommendations of the Bud Miller Park Master Plan.
“Some of those recommendations may outline that maybe the park gets moved to another part of town or maybe we end up taking a look and only develop one park,” he continued, adding that the city has time to decide and could even sell ramps to other municipalities that don’t already have those services available.