This Wednesday, this city invited those interested in bidding on the skatepark project out to Berry Hill Park for to answer questions about the RFP process and the overall park design/build desires for the park. After a grand entrance (turning into the park, I clipped the curb with my front right tire and my tire exploded–anyone coming into the park from the gas station might want to watch out for that low-lying curb) I did manage to learn a few things about the project as well…

* Right now budget is $500,000 but is expected to increase as private fundraising will begin once a design/build company is in place.

* $500,000 will be for the park footprint, landscaping around the park, entrances to the park, etc.  It will not include work to be done on the parking lot (which hopefully will include fixing that low curb when you turn in 🙂

* It also will include the base and wiring for LIGHTS!.  It will not include the actual lights themselves.  Pretty cool that the park will include lights for night skating.  The

* I understand there was a misunderstanding on the time of the meeting and that there were actually some different players at the 10AM meeting. At the 3pm meeting I know that Grindline and Spohn Ranch were in attendance. Apparently the folks from Louisville (currently working together on the reconstruction of the Louisville park) were there for the morning meeting that didn’t happen.  UPDATE: Someone said they were working with California Skateparks but I think they may have been confusing them with Wormhoudt, which is based in California.

* Several landscape architect firms were also on hand.

* There was a bit of a discussion about the city’s goal to have a 10% minority business involvement in the project.

Folks, this thing is moving!  I’ll do my best to keep you posted here.  I’m sure there will be other design/build companies interested.  In the coming weeks we will know for sure and the process for picking the company will begin.  It is my hope that when that time comes, the skate community will be represented in that decision process, but when the question was asked at the meeting about who will be deciding who wins the bid several folks were mentioned… but not “the skate community.”  This group will be fairly small, as it should be, but I do hope that in the coming days there will be someone who skates appointed to that committee.   All in all I was encouraged, and if if a qualified company is picked, as i know the city wants to do, we will have one sweet park next time this year!

More to come…

UPDATE: The decision on which contractor to go with apparently must be made by city officials but there will be some folks from the skate community involved as advisers in the process.