In an unprecedented move of swiftness and progression, the Parks Department has already scheduled the first design review meeting for the Delridge skatepark. The meeting will be at the Delridge Community Center, and will start at 7:30pm.

The Parks Department released the RFQ last week, and the deadline for potential designers to throw their hats in the ring is Monday. The process then moves forward with a review of all the qualified designers, and then interviews of the finalists will occur during the week of July 14th. A designer will be selected before this first meeting, and will be in attendance to listen to ideas and gather feedback to incorporate into the first round of design concepts.

The proposed skatepark will be large enough to provide terrain for all skill levels, and contain both transition and street skating features. Exactly what goes into the park will be decided by the skatepark designer and the skateboarders who attend the design meetings.

The Seattle Parks Department has gotten much better at focusing the public design meetings into actual design discussions, and not allowing anti-skatepark rhetoric to overtake the otherwise productive discourse. Angry neighbors often use these design meetings as a platform for providing “feedback” like we saw at Myrtle Reservoir, where grown adults referred to teenage skateboarders as “criminals” and accused them of being drug dealers. While no voices should be silenced, and everyone should be allowed to voice their opinions, a room full of young people should not have to endure slander and defamation in order to be a proactive contributors to a community process. There are plenty of other ways for people to express their disdain for teenagers to the Parks Department.

Hopefully we will see skateboarders and the Parks Department working with the neighbors and community to ensure that this new skatepark is a welcome addition to the neighborhood, and is designed with everyone’s input respected and recognized. When it works well and stays positive, the skatepark design process can actually bring neighborhoods together, and show young people that they are appreciated and supported by their communities. It can also serve as a platform for educating the non-skateboarding members of the community about the positive aspects of safe and accessible public skateparks.

Seattle Parks has also been pro-actively attending Community Council meetings and gathering input from important community organizations like the Delridge Neighborhood Development Organization. This outreach should go a long way in bringing people into the fold from the beginning, and allowing them to provide input when it can actually make a difference.

So far…so good. The Parks Department is really putting their best foot forward on this project. Let’s hope the West Seattle skateboarders and their friends and neighbors reciprocate by getting involved and keeping it positive.

The West Seattle Blog reported on this earlier today, so go over there and post a comment if you feel inclined.

One of the great things about skateboarding is how inclusive it is.  Skateboarding is typically where the kids who gravitate away from organized team sports end up.  But the uneducated often percieve the highly individual skaters as some sort of anti-social subculture that’s going to steal their lawn ornaments.  This week people in West Seattle are learning that this all-encompassing activity also includes the good Christian kids that make up the West Seattle Skate Church.

This group of activated Christian skaters stepped up and decorated the public art that flanks the end of the West Seattle Bridge with skateboards, T-shirts, and a banner that reads:  ‘Keep our Sidewalks Safe: Support Building Skateparks in West Seattle”.  This public display is definitely going to have the largest public impact of any local skatepark advocacy campaign since the skater march through downtown Seattle back in 2004.

While I’m not entirely down with the use of fear to motivate people (”Oh dear, build them a skatepark so I don’t get killed by a flying skateboard while walking on the sidewalk!”) these kids definitely have gotten the ball rolling in their own way in an effort toward getting a skatepark built in their neighborhood.  According to a press release sent out yesterday by Skate Church pastor Serena Wastman, they are hosting the skate area this year at the West Seattle Summerfest, and will be marching in the West Seattle Hi-Yu parade on July 19th, along with you if you’d like to join them.  Simply stop by the non-profit Torn skate shop on California to say hi, and sign up.

Congrats to the Skate Church kids on getting the job done, and helping to make things better for all skaters.

Snowboard Connection is hosting a Toy Machine demo at Lower Woodland on Monday.

This year Sub Pop is celebrating their 20th anniversary with a series of concerts and events, which are all benefits for local charities. But the giving does not stop there. Every year, the record label bestows a budget upon a few employees to donate to the cause of their personal choice. This year, one of those employees picked the Jefferson skatepark project.

Haven’t heard of it? That’s because before Sub Pop threw down for the design, it didn’t really have legs. The Jefferson Park re-design schematic has had a placeholder for a skatepark in it for years now, but no real advocates have stepped up to push it forward. This new infusion of cash will get a design process moving and will produce a design schematic. This way, the skate community can not only contribute by helping to plan the features that will be in the park, but there will be something on paper besides a big empty square labeled ‘future skatepark’.

For some reason a design helps people visualize the skatepark as a real possibility, and it makes it a lot easier to rally people for more funding. Congrats Jefferson Park, and thank you Sub Pop records!

It was a great day for Seattle skateboarders.

We had a great turnout despite the drab weather, tons of positive energy, and confirmations from both the Mayor and the Parks Superintendent that more skateparks are on the way, with a park in West Seattle at Delridge playfield being the next project.

The skating was furious. There were very few actual “pros” which ended up being better. The demo was performed entirely by Northwest skaters, many of whom were young kids: the future and now of Northwest skateboarding!

The park surpasses all of our expectations. There is something for every type of skater and skill level. There are issues, and Wally himself admitted to me that he wished a few things had turned out more to his liking. But really the only thing technically wrong with the place is that it’s not twice as large.

Thanks to everyone for a great day, especially the SnoCon family, Marshall from Manik, and all of our sponsors. This park was a group effort and everyone involved really deserves a huge helping of gratitude.

More coverage here, and more photos here.

Here are some images of the latest design revision, this time in glorious 3-D!

West Seattle Skaters: get ready for another wild ride…

After much consideration and a few site visits, Seattle Parks has decided to proceed with a design process for a skatepark at Delridge Playfield.

Last week, Skatepark Advisory Committee Chair Ryan Barth and I met Seattle Parks Staff at High Point playfield to discuss a skatepark at that site, following up on the feedback from neighbors at the Myrtle meetings who wanted the skatepark built there instead of in their neighborhood. Kevin Stoops showed me what I already knew would be the only spot we could put the park, which is not big enough for the $725K park that they want to build in West Seattle. The entire site is already packed pretty tight with heavily programmed sports fields, with the exception of the treed area in the SW corner. Skaters love trees too, and we don’t want to tear them out, so we were basically looking at the small space between the trees and the pathway. By my estimation, this space is barely big enough for a 2500 sq/ft skate spot. Nestling the skate spot into that hillside, because the grade is so steep (look at the tennis courts…) they would have to build a retaining wall around it which would block sight lines and be expensive to build.

In essence: the site is a bad choice for a skatepark. I am disappointed that it even made it into the Skatepark Plan.

So then the question was: which site on the CityWide Skatepark Plan would be able to accommodate West Seattle’s first proper skatepark?

The only site in the citywide skatepark plan I thought would work based on existing uses and available space is Delridge playfield, so we drove over there and checked it out. There’s plenty of room to set it back from the street and give the folks in the homes across the street a little buffer zone. There’s a community center, and a big open area that is not currently programmed. There is also a teen program at the community center whose director is very excited about the idea of a skatepark to program. The downsides are that the neighbors across the street will be upset, but that’s always the case. Also, there aren’t as many families living right around the site, and there aren’t as many bus lines running by Delridge. But because this was the only site in all of West Seattle that had a large un-programmed space in it, I recommended that Parks consider Delridge for the $725K skatepark, and put High Point on a list for a future skate dot or small skate spot.

They took the recommendation back to Superintendent Gallagher and it was approved by the executive staff. So, Seattle Parks is moving forward with the design process for the Delridge location, and will be pursuing funding for the construction during the next budget cycle. Finding a design consultant could take a month, at which point a series of public meetings will be scheduled to gather input. If everything goes as planned, West Seattle skateboarders could be skating in a new park by the end of 2009, but the key step that has yet to happen is finding the actual construction dollars to build the park.

Keep checking back for meeting dates and future opportunities for supporting this new West Seattle skatepark.

NewLine and VDZ will be in town tonight to unveil the final design draft and gather your input on any final tweaks:

When:  Thursday, June 5th @ 6:30pm

Where:  Seattle Center / Shaw Hall

The West Seattle Blog posted a follow-up to the Myrtle skatepark debacle, which included a response from Parks Superintendent Timothy Gallagher.

Nothing really new or mind blowing here,  except for perhaps the insinuation that a skatepark at High Point would for some reason be fast-tracked.  The notion that any skatepark project, or any project in Seattle for that matter, would materialize “soon” is frankly laughable.

A few of us will be walking through the site with Parks Staff next week, as well as some other West Seattle sites, to discuss options and possibilities.  This advocate prefers a network of smaller skateparks scattered across multiple West Seattle neighborhoods to one big central one, but I wouldn’t argue against a 15K sq/ft skatepark at High Point.

What remains to be seen is whether or not the High Point community will pull a Myrtle and bring torches to the meetings.  It will also be interesting to see if all those who opposed the the skatepark at Myrtle, but said they supported a skatepark at High Point, will actually come out and show their support at the meetings.

Replacing the last open green space at High Point with a skatepark sounds like a recipe for trouble to me.  I hope the Parks Department plans on supporting skaters through outreach and education instead of abandoning us like they have almost every other time some NIMBY threatens to sue.

Seattle’s City Council is considering putting a new Parks Levy on the 2008 ballot to fund new park development. The last Pro Parks Levy, which is about to expire, didn’t contain any provisions for skateparks because the committee said they didn’t hear anyone asking for them. So now’s your chance…

There will be a meeting to gather input from West Seattle residents at Alki Community Center on Monday Monday, June 2, 2008 - 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

Please attend this meeting if you can, and ask that the new levy be put on the ballot, and that it contain funding for new skateparks. If you cannot attend the meeting, you can email PELL committee chairman City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen: tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov

Seattle City Council
Councilmember Tom Rasmussen

CONTACTS: Ann Corbitt, (206) 684-8808, Rasmussen Office; George Howland, Jr., Council Communications, (206) 684-8159

Parks Levy Citizens Advisory Committee Sets Additional Community Meeting

SEATTLE– A citizens committee appointed by the Seattle City Council to advise the Council on whether to place a parks levy on the fall 2008 ballot has set an additional community meeting on Monday, June 2 in West Seattle. This meeting will provide residents with another opportunity to comment on the potential creation of a ballot measure to fund parks, open space, boulevards, trails, green infrastructure and recreation projects.

Over the past eight years, Seattles system of parks, recreation and open space have been funded by two voter-approved levies that have expired, or will expire by the end of this year. The 1999 Community Center Levy and the 2000 ProParks levy have funded major parks and open space improvements, and leveraged additional funds to support Seattle parks.

Seattle citizens treasure their parks and open spaces. Weve asked a broad-based group of citizens to help us explore the possibility of putting a new levy on the ballot, said Councilmember Tom Rasmussen . I strongly encourage residents from every neighborhood across the city to come out and share their ideas with the committee.

Community Meeting Time, Date and Location:

Monday, June 2, 2008 - 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.
Alki Community Center
5817 S.W. Stevens St.
Seattle, WA 98116