The park, expected to cost about $1 million, was designed by Wally Hollyday, who attended the meeting and briefed commissioners on his work. In July of 2012, the Ann Arbor city council had authorized a $89,560 contract with his firm, Wally Hollyday Skateparks, for the design and construction oversight of the skatepark, to be built in the northwest corner of Veterans Memorial Park. City council action on the skatepark at that location dates back to a Dec. 1, 2008 approval of a memorandum of intent. [.pdf of memorandum of intent]

The design includes a wide variety of skateboarding features – including bowls and pools; banked, Hubba and cantilevered ledges; and slappy curbs. Landscaped areas and rain gardens are located throughout the park, which will also serve as stormwater management elements. The design includes a small stage, which could be used for skateboarding demonstrations as well as other community performances. Organizers also hope to incorporate concrete “skateable artwork” on the site.

Two residents who live near Veterans Memorial Park spoke against the location during public commentary, saying they hadn’t been informed before the site was selected. They also referred to a petition of about 20 other residents who opposed the location, including the owners of Knight’s Restaurant, which is located across from the proposed skatepark. They were concerned about noise, maintenance, safety and other issues that they felt hadn’t been adequately addressed.

Later in the meeting Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation manager, reviewed the history of the project starting in 2007, including a listing of forums with neighbors, which he described as well-attended, and public hearings at PAC and city council. He later showed The Chronicle a receipt for a mailing sent to neighbors in 2008, notifying them about the proposal in its very early stages.

Trevor Staples, chair of the nonprofit Friends of the Ann Arbor Skatepark, also spoke to PAC and noted that the group would be holding a retreat later this winter to discuss their future mission, indicating that they’d be involved in ongoing support for the skatepark. Part of the MOI with the city stipulates that 10% of fundraising for the skatepark is being set aside for future maintenance.

More recently, the planning commission had been briefed on the project at their Dec. 11 working session. Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2013, with a goal of completing the project by the fall.

This brief was filed from the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron, where PAC holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Ready to launch from the lip of the Riley Skatepark in Farmington Hills, Michigan. (Photo by the writer)

Last Saturday, the Ann Arbor Skatepark Action Committee loaded up the french-fry-oil fueled BTB Party Bus with as many local decision-makers as it could find and steered a course for Farmington Hills.

They wanted to show city councilmembers, park advisory commissioners and staff planners first hand what a free concrete skatepark looked like.

The field trip itself was meant in part as fuel for the imagination as the committee rolls towards an Oct. 18 skatepark design workshop, which starts at 2 p.m. at Slauson Middle School, located at 1019 W. Washington. It’s free and open to the public.

The planned location for the park is the northeast corner of Veterans Memorial Park at the intersection of Maple Road and Dexter Avenue, on Ann Arbor’s west side.

Almost a year ago, at its Dec. 1, 2008 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council passed a memorandum of intent to develop a skatepark at the Veterans Park location. Now the question facing skatepark supporters is: Where’s the money for building and maintaining the skatepark going to come from?

Private Funding

From its inception, skatepark supporters have emphasized their intent to raise as much of that money as possible through private donations. What they’ve asked of the city of Ann Arbor has been allocation of space in an existing park. And that’s been achieved.

Trevor Staples skating the capsule at Riley Skatepark in Farmington Hills, Michigan. (Photo by the writer)

It’s what Mike Anglin (Ward 5) referred to as an “in kind” contribution from the city, when he gave his fellow councilmembers an update on the skatepark at the council’s Oct. 5 meeting. Anglin also reported at that meeting that the fundraising effort to date had accumulated around $17,000. There’s a lot of air yet between $17,000 and the $1 million that the supporters think it might take to design and build a 30,000-square-foot skatepark.

The gap between private donations to date and the amount of capital it will take to build and operate the park is one reason Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) stressed the Oct. 18 design workshop in his own communications at the council’s Oct. 5 meeting. [The planned skatepark location is in Ward 5.]

Some kind conceptual design that people can look at will be key to ramping up the effort for private donations.

According to Trevor Staples of the Skatepark Action Committee, there was a glitch on the first try, but they are currently re-filing the paperwork for their official nonprofit status, which is expected to be finalized around the first of next year. That entity will be known as Friends of the Skatepark. Until then, donors can contribute in a tax-deductible way to the skatepark’s capital fund through the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, which is acting as the fiduciary for the effort.

Public Funding

What about public funding sources? The Chronicle followed up via Google Chat on that question with county commissioner Conan Smith – he’d originally planned to go along on the bus trip to Farmington Hills last Saturday, but circumstances conspired against that. Smith is actually quite sanguine about the possibility of a skatepark partnership between the county’s parks department, Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation Commission, and the city of Ann Arbor. Smith serves on WCPARC in one of the slots designated for members of the county board.

On his inline skates at Riley Skatepark in Farmington Hills is Rodney Snider. The 15-year-old Snider has skated the park "every single day since the beginning of summer." The Ann Arbor party bus contingent is standing in the distant background. (Photo by the writer.)

In speaking with both Smith and Bob Tetens, who’s director of Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation, a point they emphasized is that the maintenance and operation of the county’s parks are not paid for out of the county’s general fund. Instead, there are two dedicated millages at 0.25 mill apiece, levied countywide to pay for parks. One of the millages goes to capital improvements and development, and the other goes to operations.

Although there’s strong support on WCPARC for a skatepark, Tetens said, it’s not yet a part of their 5-10 year capital plan. At this point, Tetens explained, “We don’t have the numbers … We don’t know what ‘it’ is – a $200,000 park or a $2 million park.” Once you have a conceptual design, he said, you have a project you can talk about.

Smith, for his part, felt that a partnership between the county parks department and the city of Ann Arbor on the skatepark would expect the city to do more than make the land contribution. Cash or cash equivalents are what he’d be looking for. By cash equivalents, Smith meant cost savings though the contribution of professional design and engineering for the project by city staff.

On Location at Riley Skatepark in Farmington Hills

Riley Skatepark, the destination of the Oct. 3 party bus, is similar in size to the kind of skatepark that’s being planned for Ann Arbor. The concrete of Riley covers 29,000 square feet – the Ann Arbor Skatepark Action Committee generally talks about a 30,000-square-foot facility.

A hockey tournament was in full swing at the ice area in Founders Park on Oct. 3. (Photo by the writer)

It also has a similar context, located within a much larger sports park complex, Founders Park, which includes ball fields and an ice arena, as does Veterans Memorial Park in Ann Arbor.

The Chronicle traveled separately from the party bus and had some time to kill waiting for the Ann Arbor contingent to arrive.

On the opposite side of the Founders Park parking lot, with signs forbidding skateboarding in the lot, the ice arena looked warmer than the rain-soaked and wind-swept concrete of the skate park. A quick impression of under-16 hockey culture that we  soaked up in an hour at the ice area: Hockey is mostly about gigantic dufflebags full of gear lugged by young men in matching windbreakers and pants, wearing shirts and ties.

We met up with the Ann Arbor bus contingent when Chris Cassell, who’s a member of Ann Arbor’s skatepark steering committee, greeted us. We’d been looking for folks to arrive in the unmistakable red BTB party bus, so we didn’t even recognize Cassell at first.

When the bus rolled up, among the folks it disgorged were Mike Anglin (Ward 5 city council representative), John Lawter (Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission), John Barrie (executive director of the Appropriate Technology Collective and editor of www.SustainableDesignUpdate.com) and Amy Kuras (Ann Arbor city park planner), as well as Jim Reische and Trevor Staples, who are on the steering committee for the Ann Arbor skatepark.

Big Ten Burrito Party bus arriving at Riley Skatepark. Visible in the passenger seat is Jordan Miller, former reporter for the Ann Arbor News, now blogger for AnnArbor.com and in charge of publicity for the skatepark action committee. (Photo by the writer)

Standing on the lip of the bowl, staring at all the blank concrete, a little impromptu design discussion unfolded among the Ann Arbor contingent. Kuras wanted to know if it might be possible to embed colors and graphics into the concrete.

Trevor Staples gave skateparks in Denver and Santa Cruz as examples where color had been used. Barrie suggested that an acid etching technique could be used on concrete to get color effects.

Looking at the capsule overhand, Barrie also mused that it could be easily built in the kind of slope that’s offered in the Veterans Memorial Park location in Ann Arbor.

Final Notes on the Field Trip

Staples and Cassell took advantage of the opportunity to actually  skate at the park – Cassell drove separately so that he could stay and skate longer if he wanted. He wanted. Mike Anglin (Ward 5) had announced at the Oct. 5 council meeting that he had stood astride a board – but only on the grass. With the aid of some Chronicle magic, maybe readers will forget he said that: [Anglin getting some sweet air.]

The bus back home was piloted by Todd Eschenburg, who drives for the BTB Party Bus. He explained that the engine gets warmed up on diesel fuel, but that once it’s up to temperature, it switches over to the used fry oil that the bus is famous for. It’s the same procedure in reverse for turning off the engine – which explained why he was idling for a few minutes after arrival in the parking lot.