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Oct. 5, 1999 By David Grant Long A dream sparked by a small group of skateboarders more than a decade ago is finally coming true. Cortez Parks and Recreation Director Chris Burkett announced last week that bids are presently being sought for the construction of a $120,000 state-of-the art skate park that far exceeds that original dream, which was a modest request for a small parcel of city land on which they could build themselves a rudimentary plywood half-pipe. (That request was rejected out of hand by the city council, and boarders have had to make do with street skating and occasional visits to parks in Durango and Farmington ever since.) But the waiting is just about over. With a lot of input from local skateboard enthusiasts and even a little from Thrasher magazine, virtually the boarders' bible, a final design for the park was arrived at last month, Burkett explained, and requests for proposals have been sent out to six contractors -- four locals and ones in Montrose and Durango -- and the job has been advertised in the Cortez and Farmington newspapers. "We'd been working on the plans for several years and met several times with the kids," he recalled Thursday. "Then we tried to build it this summer, but the kids had some comments and the plans were changed (again)." The deadline for returning bids is Oct. 21, and construction could start soon after, depending, of course, on Mother Nature. "If the weather holds, we'd like to get it done this fall," he said. "Otherwise, it'll be next spring." After altering some of the features in the proposed park, Burkett submitted it to Thrasher earlier this year and the magazine returned it with some suggestions that meant more alterations on some angles and corners and distances between the islands, bowls and ramps that make up the dog-legged concrete maze, which measures approximately 130 feet long and 100 wide. But in the end the delays and changes in plans were probably for the best, since cheaper construction methods made possible by the final design from the architectural firm of Michael Bell and Associates -- coupled with a $35,000 GOCO grant that was added to the original $85,000 budgeted for the project -- means that the park will have many features that could not be included in the earlier concepts. Previous plans called for the contours of the park to be sprayed with concrete, a special process that is very expensive because only a few firms have the necessary equipment, he explained, but under the final design the features can all be conventionally formed and poured. Burkett also checked out the skate park in Montrose, recently rated the No. 1 new park in the country by Thrasher, during the process, but said it was more "conventional" -- i.e., has more flowing surfaces and fewer interrupting constructions -- than the one to be built here. He said local skaters wanted more features associated with street skating, such as edges, rails, curbs and stairs on which to perform their gravity-defying feats. The park will be built into the slope of the southeast corner of Parque de Vida to take advantage of the natural elevation, and will include two bowls, a large one for accomplished skaters and a smaller, more shallow one for novices, two irregular shaped islands of different heights and a host of blocks, ramps and other erections. About the only remaining unanswered question is whether the aging joints of the boarders who originally approached the council are still good enough to strut their stuff. Time will soon tell. |
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