New skate park hits obstacle
Construction bid comes in over budget

The Durango Skate Park lies under a dusting of snow. Plans to expand the park and add a connector trail have been in the works since 2002, but they recently hit a snag when construction bids came in over budget./Photo by Todd Newcomer.

by Missy Votel

The long-awaited expansion to Durango’s Skate Park has hit another obstacle, at least temporarily. However, one local is working to rally skaters behind the cause.

Nancy Raffaele-Ilic, mother of a 15-year-old skateboarder, has been circulating fliers among local skateboard shops and skateboarders with the simple message: “Skateboard park expansion – let’s make it happen.”

Raffaele-Ilic said she drives her son and his friends more than two hours to the skate park in Montrose because it is a much better facility than Durango’s.

“I took him for his birthday last summer, and there were so many kids that wanted to come, I couldn’t fit them all in my truck,” she said. “I had kids calling me whom I didn’t even know.”

Raffaele-Ilic said she became involved when she noticed that construction on Durango’s Skate Park, which was expected to start late this summer, wasn’t taking place. She called the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, and that’s when she found out that bids for the park’s construction, which were opened in November, were over budget. Work was on hold indefinitely, pending further direction from the Durango City Council, sometime in the new year.

Afraid that the project, in the works since 2002, would be back burnered in favor of more pressing ones, Raffaele-Ilic put out a call to local skateboarders and skateboard advocates to make their voices heard. In addition to the fliers, Rafaele-Ilic is also collecting signatures of people who would like to see the park completed. She plans to present the list of names to the city.

“I’m just trying to get the word out,” she said. “This is us letting the city know that people are interested.”

Durango Parks and Recreation Director Cathy Metz said the project’s cost, estimated at around $1.2 million, is about $430,000 more than what the city currently has in it coffers to fund it. What makes the situation difficult is that the project is comprised of two integrated parts: the skate park as well as an adjacent Animas River Trail connector. As such, funding is coming from two different sources. Park construction, estimated at $635,000, will be covered by $535,000 from the city’s general fund with the remainder coming from a state GoGo grant. However, funds for the trail, estimated to cost $625,000, will be coming

from the half-cent Recreation Center and Animas River Trail sales tax passed by voters in 1999. The balance in that fund is only about $75,500, and even with a $121,000 GoCo grant in place, the trail is still coming up short, said Metz.

“When the bids came in, we had money available for the skate park, but the trail connector was over budget,” she said.

Metz said part of the expense of the trail is associated with the need for retaining walls where it runs along the river.

One solution to the cost overrun would be to nix the trail, which would pick up on the west side of the pedestrian bridge behind River City Hall, run along the river and end on the upper bench of Schneider Park, near the Animas Crossing condos. However, doing so would mean a redesign of the skate park to the tune of $250,000, Metz said.

“We could take out the trail, but since the two were designed to be built in tandem, we would need to redesign the skate park, and then that would be over budget,” she said.

The original skate park opened in 1997, and at the time it was the first facility of its kind to be funded and subsidized by a municipality. The park, designed on a “bar napkin” by local skater Pet Sakadinsky, was used as the benchmark for more than 100 skate parks in Colorado. While the Durango Skate Park was workable at the time it was built, the consensus among the city, park users and residents is it’s high time for an upgrade.

Raffaele-Ilic agrees. “The boys were amazed at how well the kids could skate in Montrose,” she said, adding that a new facility in Durango would help local kids reach their potential. “This town has grown, and with that, the number of really good skateboarders has also grown. The bowls are inadequate and not large enough.”

The new park, designed by San Diego’s Academy Skatepark Design, would add 17,000 square feet to the existing 3,000-square-foot park. To the north of the current bowls, an extensive urban-plaza street course has been proposed with rails, steps, ramps and other features. To the south is a snake bowl, which would provide a downhill serpentine. The integrated trail, offering seating and viewing areas, as well as multiple-use areas of varying difficulty, also are big components of the plan.

Raffaele-Ilic said these features will open the park up to more users of all two-wheeled disciplines and keep skateboarders off the streets.

Metz agrees that the upgrades are over due, but said the decision now rests in the hands of the City Council. She has contacted the city manger’s office about the situation, and expects a study session with the council sometime in January, after the holidays.

“Then the City Council will give us direction on how to proceed,” she said.

In the meantime, Raffaele-Ilic is working on motivating advocates of the park to convince the city to make the new park a reality sooner than later.

“It’s going to bring a lot of money into the city, it’s going to be worth it,” she said. “But unless (the city) hears from people who want it, it may not happen.”

Comments on the skate park can be e-mailed to: info@ci.durango.co.us.