The Rossland Skatepark Association (RSA) is moving ahead with the design of the city’s skatepark. The association had some big news recently, with the decision on who would design the park.
Robin Strachan, a RSA director, said they had just gone through a request for proposal process.
“We went out to industry and skate park design professionals and we got some good replies back,” Strachan said. “We’ve selected the company Spectrum Skateparks. Jim Barnum, with the company, is designing the park.”
In consultation with Barnum, the RSA was doing an assessment Monday of the grounds below the skatepark site, on the Emcon lot.
Barnum, who’s Vancouver company specializes in skateparks exclusively, was in Rossland a few weeks ago for an initial site visit and to meet with the rest of the board to review what Rossland is looking for in a park.
Back in November 2011, the RSA held the first of design meetings open to public input.
“We asked anybody to fill out a survey about different aspects of the park,” Strachan said. “What do Rosslanders want to see in the skatepark itself as for features, physical objects or the feel and look of the park?”
He said they want to address any issues of sound barriers for local residents and other concerns.
“We got a great amount of results back for that. We were able to summarize the survey using raw data,” he said. “From that they formatted it into what we call design intent. So it tries to summarize what we’re looking for: Approximately 1,500 sq. ft. (140 metres squared) on the south eastern corner of the Emcon lot.”
He said it’s clear from the results that Rossland is looking for a “flawy” park, which fits in with the mountain culture, biking and other aspects of the area.
“When you look at some of the other skateparks around the area, whether it’s Castlegar, the one planned for Nelson or Trail… We want to try to be something that’s a little bit different,” he explained.
“They’re a little bit more street orientated, so we’re definitely going with more flow and that’s going to fit in well with the bikers as well.”
Strachan said that the RSA has been in consultation with the mining museum as well, as the site used to be a train site. They hope to infuse some of that cultural heritage into the theme of the park.
“Just recently the mining museum emailed us some pictures of what this site used to look like to draw on some inspiration,” he said. “So we’re looking at that as to how to build that into the park.”
The RSA hopes to have the design wrapped up in June, and will be having a public meeting prior to that, either later this month or early June, to present the designs. At that meeting they will see what people think of the design and will likely have some 3D models and other things.
Strachan said they were able to fund this stage of the design through efforts by the RSA, and contributions form the Rotary club, Telus and Teck.
Once the final design comes out, then they will know in more detail how much they need to raise for the project.
“Then we’ll know how much fill we’re going to need, how much rebar, how much concrete,” he said.
For more info or to watch for the meeting dates, go to www.skaterossland.com.
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