Zakim Bridge skatepark plans remain on hold, possible 2008 completion
City park officials and boarders await a little concrete relief[/b]
J.M. Lawrence, Correspondent
Raised, brass strips sunk into the low, granite walls of the newly opened Nashua Street Park were supposed to make skateboarders go shred elsewhere.
Instead, the disciples of concrete pried up the bars, laid down a coat of wax and began to grind away on a city they claim as their urban playground.
State parks officials won't bother fixing the strips. Like scores of other property owners afflicted with chipped concrete and scraped rails, they hope a sprawling cutting-edge skate park under the Zakim Bridge will one day stem skaters' assault on granite benches, fountains and stairs.
Seven years since the Charles River Conservancy first started advocating for the skate park, backers say they hope to open the park in 2008.
They've raised $1.3 million of the $2.3 million price tag for the 40,000-square-foot park across from the Museum of Science. Naming rights for the park are still for sale.
"With less than a million to go, I'm confident we'll get there," said Renata von Tscharner, the conservancy's founder and president who fervently believes skateboarding is great for kids.
More than 800 individuals and corporations have donated funds for the project, including a $100,000 gift from the Peter and Carolyn Lynch Foundation last month.
Backers blame delays on soaring construction costs and the project's backburner status last year at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, where Big Dig construction scandals forced management shakeups after a ceiling tunnel collapse that killed a Jamaica Plain woman. The authority owns the skate park land.
A "Shred Ahead" sign, marking the park's future home, has turned into a joke for tourists on the Boston Duck Tour.
"I can't wait until my grandkids can use it," a young tour driver deadpanned to passengers last week before splashing his craft into the nearby river.
Boston skateboarder Leonard Ernshaw said skaters are still hungry for that park.
"All the bureaucracy and the red tape it's gone through just makes people want it more. I'm sure some people are frustrated it hasn't happened quicker, but the passion is definitely still there," said Ernshaw, who helped build skate parks in Newburyport, Worcester and Providence.
In the four years since the skate park's Santa Cruz-based designer first unveiled its plan, Wormhoudt Enterprises (skateparks.com) has opened at least eight other skate parks nationwide.
Landscape architect Zach Wormhoudt, who designed a similar park in Kentucky - named the Louisville Extreme - said the Boston park isn't moving especially slowly for a project of its scope and complexity.
With views of the city skyline and the ramp to the Zakim Bridge looming above, the site brings out the surfer dude in Wormhoudt, whose father designed Santa Cruz' first skate park in 1974. "It's just an awesome site," the architect said.
Boston skate park
The park would be the biggest free-admission skate park on the East Coast. The design features a huge through-pipe with a roll-in wave feature and concrete ledges mimicking the Copley Square Fountain and the Boston Medical Center plaza, both favorites of local skaters. Plans for an in-line skate track around the outside of the park were dropped because of abundant in-line skating paths along the river.
Why a skate park?
On March 23, Commonwealth Avenue residents Peter and Carolyn Lynch visited the site of the future Charles River Skatepark under the ramps of the Zakim Bridge in Cambridge. They talked about the benefits the skate park will bring to the city and the region for athletes, observers, visitors and businesses. Their foundation, the Peter and Carolyn Lynch Foundation, has donated $100,000 to the skate park. In addition to providing a much-needed venue for young people to practice their talents, the $2.3 million, 40,000-square-foot skate park will be the largest such facility in New England and will attract skateboarders, in-line skaters and acrobatic bikers from across the region. It is expected to increase tourism revenues to the city, as well as attract new businesses.
