TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Meetings On Skate Park

ADVERTISEMENT

By GEORGE WILKENS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 13, 2008

TAMPA PALMS - With construction of the long-awaited New Tampa skate park about to begin, city recreation leaders have scheduled two final meetings to receive public input about the project.

The meetings will be at 6 p.m. Feb. 21 and March 7 at the Compton Park Recreation Center, 16101 Compton Drive.

The $500,000 skate park will be part of the 40-acre New Tampa Community Park next to the Freedom High/Liberty Middle schools campus on Commerce Park Drive.

The public meetings will be the last in a series of well-attended sessions the city launched in early 2004 to discuss New Tampa's recreational needs, including the skate park.

"The February meeting is to bring people up to speed as to where we are and introduce the team that will take the skate park from design through construction," said project manager Brad Suder.

Based upon a request for qualifications and subsequent interviews, the city selected an award-winning Florida design/build company, Team Pain, to create the skate park.

"They're pretty renowned in the U.S. They have parks from California to Florida; they just finished a very successful one in Dunedin," Suder said.

"Before they launch into final design, we want them to present their expert ideas" and receive feedback from the dozens of local skaters who usually turn out for the meetings, Suder said of the agenda for the first of the two sessions.

"They'll come back two weeks later with what input they got from the community and with what we're hoping will be a final skate park design," said Suder, the city landscape architect involved with the project since its inception.

"I think it will probably be a month before they have all their construction documents done so we can hopefully start construction in late spring, early summer."

In addition to the meetings Suder has led, the Tampa Parks and Recreation Department surveyed those in attendance and other skaters about the type of facility they desire.

New Tampa residents began discussing a local skate park in 2002. In June of that year, two months after the group of interested residents met at Chiles Elementary, the city found space for the facility at the future community park, made possible through a joint use agreement the city and the Hillsborough County school district reached in 1999.

Budget shortages and other problems plagued the park, which officially opened in January 2004, but its athletic fields had been in use prior.

The park will be built next to the community center/gymnasium expected to open within a month.

Reporter George Wilkens can be reached at (813) 865-4847 or gwilkens@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT