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 Halifax sk8park getting closer! |
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Skatepark picks up speed
Dream facility at Commons will replace 10-year-old bowl
For more info, check out Halifax Skatepark Coalition website
The Halifax Herald Limited
Thursday, Sept. 22, 2005
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By AMY PUGSLEY FRASER City Hall Reporter
After years of planning, the wheels on a half-million-dollar skateboard park in central Halifax are quickly gaining momentum.
News that the city advertised a construction tender this week for the Halifax Commons park was seized upon Wednesday by members of the Halifax Skatepark Coalition.
For an organization that chose "hfxpipedreams" as its hotmail address, this latest step in the long-running saga means the park is finally becoming a reality.
"Every time we'd get an injection of cash, it would be exciting," coalition director Alex Keaveny said Wednesday of the almost $440,000 it has raised since 2003 through concerts, CD sales, in-kind donations and heavy chunks from the provincial and municipal governments.
"But now with the tender being issued, it's really happening."
The modern and intricate 1,140-square-metre skate park will replace the 10-year-old bowl carved from an old pond at the Central Commons off Bell Road.
Local skaters have needed a more challenging and better-built park for years, says the co-owner of PRO Skateboards on Blowers Street.
"Besides the bowl, everything else was built in the middle of the night by skateboarders," Zach Tovey says, noting they had difficulty keeping one eye on their work and the other one out for police.
The new park (click here to get a glimpse of the design) was created by a Vancouver firm in tandem with local skaters and "it's excellent," he says.
"There has been a lot of input locally," Mr. Tovey said, commenting on the experienced, high calibre of skateboarders the city has produced in the 27 years he's been involved with the sport.
"There are some really good skateboarders in this city but a lot of them migrate out," he said. "This park will bring great skaters from around the world and help local ones just get better and better."
Skateboarding is an easy sport to pick up, he says, both for the individual and the organizers.
"A hockey rink would cost millions, while baseball and football fields need upkeep," he said.
"With skateboarding, all you need is a board and to show up because it's open all day and all night."
It's perhaps because of those casual aspects that local fundraisers knew they'd have difficulty coming up with the cash for the new park, says Mr. Keaveny, a 32-year-old Halifax crown attorney who has skateboarded recreationally for 19 years.
"We sort of approached it as something we would have to organize ... because it's rare that a city would take it upon itself," he says.
That might be because skateboarding is mostly seen "as a youth activity and one that many parents can't relate to," he says.
But as a new parent himself, Mr. Keaveny says the perception of skateboarding is changing as the population ages.
"As skateboarders get older and move into other professions ... (the sport) is getting more of a voice."
When his organization approached the city, he said, it was almost as if they were "waiting for someone to take the initiative."
And maybe they were.
Blair Blakeney, the co-ordinator of Parks Capital Projects, says skate parks are the No. 1 request in his department.
"I have more communities asking for skate parks, and wanting to build them, than anything else," he said Wednesday.
He applauds the Halifax Skatepark Coalition for the professionalism and organization that has been a hallmark of his work with them during the past few years.
"It's going to be a major destination," he says of the Halifax Commons park.
The city will likely announce the award recipient shortly after the tender closes on Oct. 5, he says.
After that, a decision will have to be made whether the four- to six-week construction project will start this fall or be put off until the warmer spring weather.
"It's a tricky call," he says.
Because the existing bowl will be incorporated into the final design, local skaters will be without a facility during construction, he said.
"But they'll be more than willing to wait for that," he said.
"Because it will be the nicest skate park in eastern Canada."
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