By Tony Gembeck

Originally Published in TransWorld SKATEboarding Business magazine (www.skatebiz.com).

"We are proud of your [the youth committee's] energy, your hard work, and your persistence. You have pushed us. You started the ball rolling. You provided the concepts for the design. You sold this project to the service clubs and business community. You were part of the construction team. You learned to compromise, you learned patience, you learned about civics and local government. You did not give up when the project seemed too slow." -- Heather Arnis, Director, Greater Columbia County Parks and Recreation District, Oregon

Let's assume for the moment that your campaign to build a free public skatepark has met with success. The city has pledged its support, a majority of the community is behind the idea, and there are hard-earned fundraising dollars sitting in the bank waiting to be spent. For miles in every direction skaters anxiously await their brand-new skatepark. Congratulations, now is the time for design and construction.

If you think that quality skateparks come from pushing around some dirt and pouring 'crete on a bump, think again. Building a concrete skatepark is a labor-intensive and highly specialized endeavor. Further, if the builders don't get it right the first time out, you'll be skating their lumpy transitions and similar mistakes for a long time to come. Merely talking about perfect transitions, or why this park is great but that one sucks, is not going to work, either. Trust me -- to most non-skaters, all parks look alike. Now, more than ever, the skate community needs to get involved with the project and remain involved until the job is complete. When it comes to building a concrete skatepark, your city needs proactive guidance.

First, try to convince the city to contact professionals from within the skatepark industry. There are many existing businesses that specialize in skatepark design and construction. Experienced teams of professional skatepark designer/builders should be the first avenues explored by any community considering that type of facility. This means reputable designer/builders with a portfolio of quality parks to their credit. Almost all of these teams will have skaters on their crews. That fact alone is the best insurance against a park full of defective, unskateable elements that for all intents and purposes are "set in stone." Professional teams also tend to have the skate experience required to determine what skaters' ideas will work together and in what arrangement. While contracting with a professional designer/builder may cost the city more in the short term, these teams consistently build some of the best skateparks around. Simply put, if your community has the financial resources to hire a professional team to do the design and construction, then it should. After all, cities consistently spend millions of dollars on other sport facilities and they owe it to themselves to put the same resources and attention to detail into the skatepark.

Hiring an experienced team of designer/builders does not necessarily mean that the project is simply turned over to them in anticipation of the result. You will not only have some say about what goes into the park, but also your opinions will be respected. In all but rare instances, members of a reputable team of designer/builders will meet with local youth to arrive at a consensus of opinion prior to submitting a finalized design to the city for approval. In the end, design contribution by local skaters is critical to the overall success of a project. Look with skepticism upon any team unwilling to talk to the potential users of the park, as that may actually result in a skatepark design that does not meet your needs. Even worse, you could be left with a very elaborate design that no one has any idea how to build.

With most construction projects, you begin with a design. A draftsperson then takes that design and incorporates the specifications provided other professionals (such as structural engineers) into a set of construction drawings, or blueprints. From those blueprints, contractors know exactly what they are expected to build and precisely how that construction is to take place. Likewise, the city will use the specifications within the construction drawings as guidelines for their periodic inspections. Typically, alterations cannot be made to the parameters dictated within the construction drawings without the review and written approval of the city. When it comes to buildings and parking garages, this is a good thing. But with skateparks things are a bit different, and professional designer/builders should be given some latitude with regard to modifications. What appeared correct on the blueprint, even to a seasoned professional, may need a little tweaking in the field. However, only professional designer/builders will be capable of making those on-the-spot determinations.

There are a couple of designer/builder teams that insist upon the freedom to make any modifications they desire while the park is under construction. These skateparks undergo a dynamic, almost organic process while the park is being built. This design approach works because these teams have a high level of experience both as skaters and as park builders, and demonstrate a meticulous attention to detail. The result is some of the best skateparks in the world. However, there are currently very few cities willing to turn a team loose without knowing what they will get in the end. Because of that, these teams tend to get work sporadically and only within a small geographic area where their previous works can be directly observed.

While the thought of hiring professionals to build a facility is great, some cities are too financially and geographically isolated to hire experienced designer/builders. For these communities the choice is either to forgo having a public skatepark, or to attempt to do it themselves utilizing local talent. That decision needs to be made within the community and will depend to a large extent on how committed the core group is to the cause of gaining that skatepark. Even then, there is no guarantee of a quality result.

To those communities I offer a few pieces of advice. First, do your research. A few hours scouring the Internet will yield valuable information on current construction methods and design trends. Talk to cities that already have skateparks, and find out what worked for them and what did not. Try to learn from others' mistakes, and not your own. Second, get a set of construction drawings from an existing skatepark. Pick a city with a skatepark you admire and simply go to the city engineer, explain the situation, and offer to pay for a set of the construction drawings for that skatepark. It should cost at most 20 bucks. The construction drawings belong to the city and are public property; they can do with them what they like. If the city is unable to provide you with a copy, most will allow you to review the documents while you are in the city engineer's office. Take notes -- even if you have to fly across the country to get this done, it will be well worth the effort. Of course it would be unethical to build directly from that set of plans, and that is not what I am suggesting. But as a reference tool, they will be worth their weight in gold.

Generally speaking, an organized group of local skaters should collaborate with a professional skatepark designer/builder to arrive at a design for your skatepark. Overall, you will get a great design, and the sense of ownership among users of the skatepark will be dramatically increased. The resulting skatepark will be tailor-made for your community and will reflect the interests, ideas and creativity of local skaters, who can take pride in the knowledge that the park is truly theirs from the ground up.

Involving the youth in designing the skatepark also empowers them with strength that comes from knowing they can get what they want by setting goals and working toward them. This means they will be more likely to self-police the skatepark in the future to curtail problems. I probably don't even have to touch upon the positive political aspects of such a community-based project, but they are significant as well. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying this method.

However, regardless of the skaters' experiences, it takes more than one or two individuals to design a skatepark. A community-based skatepark design process relies on a group of individuals whose decisions are facilitated by someone who has a genuine desire to help the group realize their collective vision. Even if your community can afford the assistance of professional designer/builders, I recommend that skatepark committees hold some preliminary design meetings prior to contracting and working with a team of professional designer/builders in order to determine what elements are desired, and to accurately and intelligently collaborate on the final design. The last thing you want is to pay to fly designers across the country only to be greeted by a din of kids shouting for ledges, stairs and rails.

There is almost always one good artist in every community. A local artist is a helpful addition to a preliminary design team. Find an artist who is willing to work with the youth committee. If you don't know one personally, place an advertisement in the local newspaper or ask for support during one of your town-hall meetings. Pretty soon someone will volunteer. The volunteer person doesn't need a degree in architecture or need to know how to skate, but should be capable of drawing simple design plans. The artist is there to help facilitate the design of a skatepark only in cooperation with local youth. The youth should always have their input, and it should always be valued and respected.

Assuming that you have already formed a skatepark committee, the facilitator of the design process should plan a design meeting with the youth committee to start on design work. The facilitator should bring clay to this meeting. Divide the clay between committee members and ask them to make obstacles they would like to see in the park or to replicate their favorite places to skate around town. Once you have these obstacles, they can begin to place them together and move them around until they find a design that begins to flow. Throughout the meeting, the design facilitator should take notes on the relative size of the proposed obstacles (they are unlikely to be to scale). Do not try to get too far during that first session, because there needs to be ample time for reflection and critical evaluation. Give the initial ideas a chance to sink in a bit. Often there is a need to set things aside for a while to realize that another idea may be better or worse. At the end of the meeting, the clay obstacles should be saved and a quick drawing rendered that can be photocopied and given to all members before leaving.

Prior to future meetings, a more formal drawing of the skatepark design (to scale) should be finished, and the meeting should be opened to suggestions for modifications and additions. There will be a lot of changes suggested. Each change should be voted upon and the vote should be recorded, and the drawing modified. In this way, changes can be made from day to day. After three or four meetings some consensus of opinion should start to emerge and the issues will begin to center around only a few details. Avoid the temptation to treat these details as minor and move along. If details are hanging things up, that is a sure indication that something is not right in that area of the design. Although this process may seem tedious and unnecessary, stick with it because there will come a point when everyone agrees that the design is done and that they have designed a really great park. All the youth involved will feel that the skatepark design reflects the interest and skill level of the community, and deserves to be built. Now you have something of substance to share with the professional design team upon their arrival.

A few words of warning about adult (non-skater) contributions to design or construction. It seems that during every project there comes a point either during design or construction when some non-skater attempts to push through an aspect of design or continue construction on something that is too difficult to skate or is being constructed incorrectly. The skaters often know this and are vocal in their opposition. Sometimes this is a desire to finalize the design without further review in order to save the time or the aggravation of going back to the drawing board. Other times it's a more perverse sort of logic. The justification usually goes something like, "Ah, just go ahead -- it will make it more challenging. They don't mind getting hurt, right?"

This is important: making or leaving something steeper, bumpier, or what-have-you when skaters are claiming it's not the right thing to do is irresponsible at best. If a group of skateboarders say that a portion of a design will not work, they are probably right. More than anyone else they realize that it only takes a few more degrees to an angle, a sharper transitional radius, or a slightly more rough and imperfect surface to turn a park from fun to unskateable and dangerous. I know of one skatepark where, during the construction process, the youth kept telling the contractor that the obstacles were being built too big, too steep, and with kinks at the bottom of the elements. Instead of listening, the contractor fenced off the area and continued to build the park in spite of protest from the youth, continually claiming to the city that the kids didn't know what they were talking about. Well, the park is built and it sits there practically empty most of the time, as it's frankly a conglomeration of unskateable junk. The young people in town still skate, but they skate on the street like always. The city feels it wasted its money, and the young people appear ungrateful.

Don't be apprehensive about showing the proposed design to other skaters who are not from within the community. Their opinions will be valuable. If you travel to other skateparks, pull some skaters over and ask them what they think. No skater wants to see a poorly designed park. If your committee has a web site, post your design on the site and ask for peer review. You will get reviews from all around the world.

How do you find a site for your skatepark? Your best bet is to ask the city council to donate the land upon which to build the skatepark and to maintain the skatepark after it opens. However, be informed when it comes time to select a site. You should be prepared to suggest the best possible location. Pick a few possible sites in your town and rate them using your own rating method. Keep notes with your comments. Don't make this more complicated than necessary, just look for key items. Is the site accessible? Is there adequate parking, pay phones and restrooms? Is security an issue?

Once a site has been agreed upon, the first thing to do is to get the property surveyed. This will establish elevations from which to begin design and construction. As with most things, try to get this donated by a survey company in your local area. Once the survey has been completed, you will be provided with a map of the site showing the contours and elevations. The survey company will also provide you with the same information on floppy disk. This information, along with the skatepark design and recommendations from a structural engineer, will result in the blueprint for your new park.

Engineering services are often perceived to have no direct bearing on a skatepark. The truth is, they are critical to the longevity of the facility. While a park may look great when it's first built, if it's not engineered correctly to withstand the forces of nature, it may not last for long. One of the first things to determine is the depth of the water table. In essence, this is how deep you can excavate before the hole you are making starts to fill up like a bathtub. This may seem like a minor detail, but it's not.

During the construction of the Newport, Oregon, skatepark, they mistakenly excavated below the water table. In an effort to stop the flow of water, shotcrete was applied. That didn't work. What remained can only be referred to as cement soup. It took another season, more of the city's money, and a tremendous effort on the part of a couple of professional skatepark builders (willing to fix someone else's mistakes) to get the park where it is today.

You will also need what is called a "soil boring." This is a sample taken from the existing soil that is submitted to a laboratory for analysis. A structural engineer will then determine specifications for the construction of the facility based upon the results of that testing. While it may look the same to you and me, some soil is highly expansive and will blow up like a balloon when wet. And when the soil expands, it can shove a skatepark around like it was nothing. At best this can cause substantial cracking, at worse the dreaded vertical separation-think "stairs" where none were planned.

Once you've decided upon a location for the park, have a finished design, the results of the property survey, and soil borings, it's time to hand it all over to someone who can turn the plan into a set of construction drawings. These blueprints are accurate delineations of the park design that guide the contractor during construction. It includes all details pertinent to the construction of the skatepark. Accurate construction documents are essential to the bid process, because it allows the builders to bid accurately and correctly. Therefore, all builders will need to see the construction documents in order to bid as accurately as possible.

Again, you'll want to attempt to get the drafting services for the construction documents donated if possible. This is when a copy of the construction drawings from an existing skatepark will really help. Many of the construction details for a skatepark do not change substantially from one project to the next. There is no good reason to pay a draftsperson to figure out how to do something for the first time when they can refer to a document that is essentially the same thing. The city council may be willing to donate the services of a city employee. If not, there are probably several architects in your area. An advanced student of architecture is also capable of rendering the blueprints for you. At this point it's important to stress that the conceptual/design work is finished and that whomever is working up the plans should not make changes without the input of the skatepark committee and the professional designer/builders.

Building a skatepark can be tricky business. In addition to methodology specific to skateparks, anyone attempting this must have a firsthand working knowledge of concrete construction. You cannot just "wing it" when building a skatepark. Every step in the construction process must be fully understood and done properly in order to arrive at a suitable result. Other than labor-intensive minor details (grinding high spots, patching, etc.), the result cannot be substantially changed by alterations during the latter phases of the construction process. The quality of your skatepark will be determined by the builders' attention to detail every step of the way.

The first step in the construction process will be to prepare the area by removing the sod and all organic debris. Tree roots and all other organic matter must be cleared, because they will inevitably decompose and leave a void that can lead to cracking or caving. Once the area is prepared, wooden forms will be fabricated and placed. Among other things, forms hold the coping in place temporarily and contain the concrete while it sets (becomes hard). For skateparks, the concrete will be reinforced with steel rods (rebar) that are bent to the shape of the park by hand and lashed to one another with wire. When the forming is ready, concrete is added to the forms, and the material worked in. This step is critical and must be done quickly. Once placed and spread, the concrete is now ready for screeding. Screeds are guides to shape the surface of the concrete to roughly finished dimensions. Floating the concrete is next. Floating will begin to smooth the surface of the concrete and work a slight amount of water to the top.

The next step is to finish the concrete. Finishing results in a smooth, even surface. The first step in finishing the concrete is to re-float the surface. This process is very precise, because you basically go over every section by hand. Troweling is the last step of the finishing process. Quality skateparks have a hard-troweled finish. The amount of troweling determines how smooth the concrete will be. After that, the concrete must cure. Concrete attains the majority of its strength within seven days. Given the anticipation that surrounds the construction of a skatepark, it may be difficult to keep folks away that long, but a slow, undisturbed cure process is critical to keep cracking to a minimum. Patience will pay off in the long run.

Remember all those times you told various business leaders how supporting the skatepark would bring them more business after it opened? Well, it's not going to just happen -- you need to work to make it happen. Now that all that hard work has finally paid off, it's time to celebrate and attract some attention to your skatepark and the community. The best way to do this is to have a high-profile grand-opening celebration. Use this celebration to thank the youth, the city council, yourself, and any other people involved in the building of the skatepark. Enjoy a job well done.

In one community, the youth committee obtained exclusive use of the 100-acre park where the skatepark is located, closed off the streets, brought in food vendors and a covered trailer to act as a stage, organized seven bands and invited professional skateboarders. It turned out to be the largest festival of its kind ever to take place in the city and went off without a problem. Few opening events ever happen without some speeches, so plan for a few of those as well. Speeches are often given during ceremonies that officially turn skateparks over from skatepark committees to the city, so consider inviting the mayor, members of the city council, or other individuals whose contributions deserve recognition.

There will always be chances to improve the skatepark. Some additions will make the skatepark more attractive to the city, as well as to skaters. For example, landscaping will make the park more attractive to all. Adding trees can provide welcome shade after a session. See if you can get donated services of a landscape architect or a local gardening club. Request materials from local nurseries or other shops that sell plants. Consider things like spectator seating, drinking fountains, restrooms, playground equipment, public pay phones or even a snack shop.

Once the skatepark is built, the city government may want to regulate its use for special events. This may include a fee or specific procedures for obtaining exclusive use of the skatepark for contests. The city may also consider a rate schedule for the use of the skatepark for corporate promotions. Liability issues will vary from state to state and town to town. The only legal advice that I have to offer is "consult the attorneys." Decisions of this nature are among the most serious and should rightfully be made by the city council in cooperation with the city attorney.

During the mid-'70s the first batch of skateparks to pop up was generally flawed. Then, by the late '70s, most parks being constructed were pretty decent. This was in large part due to project coordinators focusing on a small group of dedicated designer/builders who had proven their competence, and not simply turning projects over to anyone with rubber boots and a trowel.

The same holds true with the current wave of skateparks. Prior to 1999, good concrete skateparks were the exception and not the rule. But just as before, the quality designer/builders are rising to the top, while the incompetent ones find it more and more difficult to get work. One of biggest problems is that the best designer/builders are so busy that they find it difficult to be accessible to their potential clients. Subsequently, municipalities choose to go with whomever they can find. Luckily, this too is changing.

This information copyright © TransWorld Media 2001.