SKATEPARK SURVEY – Tell us your thoughts about other skateparks.
July 25, 2010 15 Comments
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Do you skate, bmx, or hangout at skateparks? If so…great! In order to build the skatepark that meets the needs of Lake County, we are asking you for your feedback. By knowing what has worked and what hasn’t in other communities, we can plan for a park that all will enjoy. Therefore, these surveys are crucial during the planning process, and through your thoughtful analysis we can design a park that is fun, has great terrain features, and flows well. Thank you for your time, and we look forward to your comments!
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DOWNLOAD THE SURVEY HERE → SKATE SURVEY
Return the survey at a skatepark meeting or at the address on our contact page. Thanks.
About skateleadville
I’ve been in the Vail Valley for about 10 yrs and we need a real skatepark. Team Pain has been killing it in Colorado for the past few yrs and Dreamland also has the magic formula. Choosing a skaterbuilt concrete park builder is a must! Prefab or non skate contractors will be a waste of money…look at the Gypsum skatepark for some proof.
Don’t be like Vail and waste the chance for a destination skatepark. Vail could have had a great concrete park and opted for the it’s current setup of ramps, rails and piles of wood costing more than a concrete park.
Check these proven companies out!
http://www.artisanskateparks.com
http://www.teampain.com
http://www.dreamlandskateparks.com
http://www.grindline.com
Thanks Matt for your input. We’re not using pre-fab, we agree completely with your concerns. We’re going to have a poured in place concrete skatepark. We’ve checked out parks in the mountains and down in the front range, so I think we’re on the same page. The foot print is going to be about 21,000 square feet, larger than Silverthorne. We’re going to have a couple of bowls, some banks, and a decent street area with room to push. We have a designer selected, but what we need at this point is comments on what type of specific terrain people are interested in, such as: how much tranny, will people use vert and if so, how much, and what street obstacles do people want? Let us know what type of terrain you would like to skate.
Thanks Again! We’ll be unveiling our concept plan soon, so keep in touch.
Cheers!
What companies have you looked at? Who did you go with? I like a variety of everything (Roxbuogh Village, Arvada, Lafeyette, Broomfield, Fairplay, Kremling,Ridgeway and Snomass to name a few. POOL COPING is a must. Also, something that will promote progression….not some basic cookie cutter design. Skate & Destroy
Hi Matt, Our county chose Native Skateparks, they are a new company out of Silverthorne. But, the guys behind it have over twenty years of skatepark building experience and skate too. Some of the guys have worked under California Skateparks and Team Pain. They were chosen for a number of reasons, but most importantly, they were flexible and were able to provide us a good value with a limited budget. What is planned at the moment is as follows: 1. Kidney bowl with pool coping. 2. Flow bowl with hips, different elevations, extensions, with steel and pool coping. 3. Street area with banks, ledges, stairs, rails and a pyramid.The skatepark plan will be unveiled in a couple of weeks. When we get it, we’ll email it to you so the Vail Valley crew can check it out.
I’m curious, you didn’t mention Edward’s Freedom Park on your list. As a local, what are your comments about that park? What works, what doesn’t? We visited Edwards a week ago, the main issue I saw was the street area, it seemed congested. Where’s the push room? I’m not sure how you would get enough speed to clear the stairs on the west side. I’m sure someone can do it, but it seems tight.So far, Arvada looks like one of the best, wish we had that kind of money to spend on a park, but I think ours will still be decent.
Cheers, Leaf
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if We’re looking at a 21,000 sq. foot skate park I think aurora wheel park (http://www.denverskatepark.com/aurora.html) is a great example of a perfect “fun for everyone” type of layout. I’m not saying we should try to imitate it but there are some lessons in skate park design that can be taken from it. If you look at the southwest corner of the skate park you can see that there are only small beginner items 2′ bank and a 2′ pyramid with a 6″ box on top, perfect for true beginners to learn the basics of pumping ramps and grinding. once they’ve mastered that they can move on to the northwest section of the park which includes a 2′ 6″ quarter pipe (perfect first drop in) with an extension going up to about 3′, a 6″ grind box with a 1′ 6″ drop off the end coming halfway down a 2′ bank and a 3′ spine/pyramid with a 1′ 6″ gap in the middle making it perfect for intermediate skaters. Then as you get to the east side of the park you see two large bowls and a more advanced street area all fit into a 20000 sq. ft. package. As a local of Leadville who leaves town to go skate way to much I would be very happy to see a lesson taken from this park.
Thanks Caleb for taking the time to document your thoughts on the Aurora park! We agree that there are many lessons to learn from past skatepark designs. Not only have we seen inadequate areas for all skill levels in some parks, but we have also noticed that spaces can be cramped trying to fit in all types of park obstacles. Our challenge is to offer enough terrain options for everyone while allowing enough room for all the different user groups. Even though we’re a small mountain town, we hope to have a really well rounded park – skatepark design has really evolved in the last couple of years and we hope to take advantage of this evolution. If you have any other parks that you like or features that you would like to see in the park, feel free to tell us about them.
For others not familiar with the Aurora Skatepark check out the following link for more photos.
http://www.coskate.com/SkatePark.aspx?Park=COAurora
Cheers!
One piece of advice I would give with the amount of people skiing/snowboarding in this town would be making a down box with a recycled plastic surface. You don’t need coping, you never have to wax it, and it will slide for skis/snowboards without damaging them badly. also making sure the park flows well is a must. I don’t know how many parks I’ve been to where I loved all the features but it was impossible to do a line where you could hit more than 1 item in sequence. Once you figure out the features you want to put in the park it’s important that you take time to look at the layout, it’s the difference between a good park and a great one in my opinion.
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Mentioning winter access for skiers and boarders on the skatepark home page is awesome. This is the “outside the box” thinking that will make this park stand out and bring in users from out of town. Excellent work.
An Oregon, gravity style skatepark in action, Check it out.
Thanks for all your great comments, and the video above!
Hi everyone. I was in Salida over the weekend, and visited their small skatepark next to the steam plant–right next to downtown. The space is tiny, and almost all of it is dedicated to a bowl with two sections. One of the sections is incredibly steep and deep (I’m not a skater, so pardon my lame descriptions). My overall impression is that Salida created something that would be great for stud skaters, but terrible for beginners. My son has never skated before, and a facility like that would be completely intimidating and uninviting for him. If it turns out for cost reasons that we can’t have a full-blown skate park that serves the needs of beginners through experts, then I think we need to err on the side of providing a less hard-core skate park–one that encourages beginners and recreational skaters. Thanks everyone. -Peter Frykholm, Rec Department
Yes, I agree entirley. A smaller, mellower and easily skateble area can still fun for advanced skaters if the transitions are right. While an advanced area is unskateable to beginners. See Silverthorns park for a great example of a mellow park that advanced sk8ers can shred.
I think this is a great idea for leadville. We need something for kids and people to do.It would be a good place to go for kids after school.Its a great sport, me and my daughters watch skate shows all the time and it would be awesome to see some skaters shred leadville.cause leadville is a recreation town of all kinds we need some more options.Thanks
This is great! As a long time local, I’ve put alot of thought about the benefits of a quality skatepark here. I can’t count how many times a carload of friends and I have driven to a nearby town to spend a few hours a another communities skatepark. And spend a few dollars on gas and lunch. A quality skatepark will bring modest amounts of people here on daytrips. The better the park, the more people it will attract. Not necessarily bigger, Just well thought out. I think we need an outline of the site before design, Because a park line needs to flow within its confines.
Another Idea is to design certain aspects of the park to accomodate snowboard and ski rail or jib features. Plenty of mountain town skateparks fill up with snow in the winter. As they do this creates an urban/off resort type of skiing and riding experience. Any skatepark with a little snow can function as winter recreation for “terrain park” demographic. I’m just thinkin that you can build 1 or 2 skateable features with winter compatability. Get more bang for your buck and be pioneers of sorts.
The new recreation spot is ideal because of noise issue’s. And maybe it can utilize the lighting?
Thanks for doing this and thanks for listening.