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At a bare minimum, a skate park in Eureka could inspire locally-sponsored events, form skate teams, and provide pro skaters a place to thrash.
"I would love for it to be a link in a chain for professional skaters. Have a place for them to come by and do demos," Eureka Councilman Jeff Leonard says.
But at the site of the skate park there are no rails, ramps or bowls for skaters to devour. All that occupies the 12,000 sq. ft. area that will someday be a skate park, is a perfectly graded pile of dirt and sophisticated drainage systems.
The Eureka Skate Park will be built - just not as soon as skaters were told. Originally slated to open this past summer, the park is now scheduled to open at the end of summer 2009.
Many skaters around town feel like the Eureka Skate Park is a pipe dream. Mark Dluzniewski, an experienced Eureka skater who works at the AMPT skate shop in Arcata, says he doesn't understand why nothing is built.
"The price [of the park] just keeps escalating," he says. "At this point it seems like a fantasy."
Leonard, who heads the project, says the city has too much money not to build the park. "The first thing I want to say is the rumor [about the park getting buried] is not true," says Leonard.
Several times, most recently this past June, the city threatened to take away the bond money appropriated to the skate park, fueling rumors of the park's demise. Imposing deadlines forced park planners to rush out and raise money in fears their project would get pushed aside.
But Mike Knight, assistant city manager of Eureka, says those funds are now secure until 2011. Leonard says they just had to show the city that they have a concrete plan for building the park.
So far, the park possesses $125,000 in city and state committed bonds, and another $98,000 have come in grants from various organizations such as the Tony Hawk Foundation. Out of the 78 parks that applied for grants from the foundation, Eureka is one of the only three that received the maximum amount of $25,000. The foundation's Web site says their mission is to help low-income communities create skate parks to "foster lasting improvements in society." Local fundraisers for the park have also raised $47,000, bringing the total amount the park has to build to $320,000. Leonard hopes to raise another $100,000 by summer.
The park has undergone several changes in its design. Originally the park was 19,000 sq. ft., but rising costs caused designers to axe 7,000 sq. ft.
Leonard says the park will be better because of the changes in its plans. "The first generation plan had a bigger park, but I think this plan is a little more open, more skate-able park," Leonard says.
Dluzniewski wonders why the city did not stick with its original plans and start building some features skaters of all styles and disciplines could use.
Leonard now intends to do just that - get part of the park done, so there will be something to skate and build momentum for the rest of the features to be built. "We're gonna bid just a portion of the park that way that portion will get built no matter what," he says.
When a company plans to build something, they send their plans out to the contractors. The contractors send back an estimate on how much the work will cost. The bidding process ends when the company chooses a bid based on total projected costs and the contractor who submitted the bid.
The first portion of the park to be built will include the bowl and the kidney-shaped pool, the most technically-difficult things to build. Leonard says the city needs to hire a company with expertise in building concrete bowls, or pools. Chances are they will be from out of the area.
"We're looking to get a local specialist, so we don't have to pay the costs associated with out-of-town contractors," Leonard says. Fuel and lodging costs must be factored in and consume a large chunk of bids.
The city also bid out the park too late to get it built by summer '08. They didn't start the process till June; a problem since most construction companies book their summer schedule by March, says Leonard.
According to Knight, the city hopes to avoid these complications this go-around by bidding out the project this winter, awarding it in March, and starting construction as soon as the weather breaks.
"[Skaters] should be skating by the end of summer," says Knight. So far the preliminary work is complete. Several community businesses, such as Mercer/Fraser, Maple Service Plumbing, and Hilfiger Pipe donated roughly $200,000 in free construction, installing pipes for a drainage system, site excavation, and completing ground preparations. Leonard thinks the rest of the skate park could be built much of the same way after the major components are finished. He says the street portions are easier to complete with in-kind (donated) work and there are companies in town that can do it.
In the end, it's hard to estimate how much the park will cost overall. It depends on two factors: how much money will be in the bank, and how much the bid will be.
Leonard says, "If we're lucky the two will come together."
Leonard understands that local skaters are concerned about how the park will be built, and that's why he incorporated some of their comments on the final plan. He knows the most important thing is to build a park that local skaters and the City of Eureka can be proud of.
"For me, the mission is to provide a great place for kids to skate," he says.
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