Public talks about bringing a skate park to the city’s West Side will begin at this week’s council meeting, scheduled for April 3 at 6 p.m.
The proposal is in its beginning stages, city manager Terence Reidy said. Chris “Puddin” Aylward will attend the meeting on Wednesday and, with city officials, explain the plan during the 6 p.m. workshop session.
Those involved within the skateboarding community are being encouraged through social media campaigns and word of mouth to attend the council meeting and comment. A general public comment session is scheduled to begin at around 7 p.m., after the council finishes the rest of the workshop meeting.
Following Hurricane Sandy, area skaters constructed a DIY, or do-it-yourself, skate park on a concrete area near the beach at the south end of the boardwalk [pictured above]. Boardwalk redeveloper Madison Marquette owns that area, and Madison Marquette workers dismantled the park last month, that group’s executive vice president, Anselm Fusco, said today.
Madison Marquette dismantled the park because it was set up on “unsafe” private property which was not insured, Fusco said. The concrete site near the Casino at the south end of the boardwalk once functioned as an ice-skating rink, he added.
“We love the idea of having a skate park,” Fusco said. “We’re very supportive of skateboarding. It just has to be done in a rational way that protects us if it’s going to happen on our property.”
Aylward approached Madison Marquette representatives to begin working toward a solution which could have involved a skate park on Madison Marquette-owned land, Fusco said. But as that conversation moved forward, the plan shifted to creating a skate park on the West Side of the city.
“There’s been this growing enthusiasm about skateboarding on the West Side,” Reidy said today. “It’s time for us to be looking at doing a skateboard park and looking for a site on the West Side where we have a lot of skateboarders now.”
Reidy and Aylward met with city redevelopment director Don Sammet and recreation director Leesha Floyd to discuss the possibilities recently, Reidy said.
At Wednesday night’s council meeting, the public conversation about possible locations and logistics will begin, Reidy said. The city is hoping the project will result in a DIY skate park, he said, similar to the one created near the Casino out of found objects and debris from the hurricane.
“It really becomes a community park that the skateboarders in the city build themselves and take care of,” he said of the DIY process.
Sometimes municipalities approach skate parks “in a much more formal fashion,” Reidy said, and end up saddled with the costs of ramps and equipment, as well as a long waiting period while the park is organized.
The city’s DIY effort will be much more organic, he said.
“I think Asbury Park is the kind of city that is more organic and I think that’s part of what makes us special — things like this can happen and it can be more grassroots and bubble up from the community,” Reidy said.
The city would likely use its joint insurance fund [JIF] to cover the park, Reidy said. The JIF is used for many recreation activities, including a basketball tournament that took place at the Boys and Girls Club several weeks ago.
So far, two council members have expressed support for the plan, Reidy said.
“I love the fact that we’re going to have this conversation,” Reidy said. “Wednesday will be an opportunity to put some substance to it and figure out the next steps.”
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[Photo by Chris Spiegel.]
