Westside Community skatepark

It was supposed to be another ramp park, but…

The newly formed El Paso Skatepark Association had been making the rounds with City leaders and decision makers, doing presentations and showing the states of disrepair and proposed action plans to fix safety issues at El Paso’s 8 modular ramp parks.

We wanted to re-focus the way our City spent taxpayer money on its public skateparks. We wanted concrete. To drive the point home, our slogan became “Tienes Concrete?” – Spanglish for “Got Concrete?”

Parks Board meeting

EPSA founding members Gabe Lawler and Paul Zimmerman made an hour long presentation at the monthly El Paso Parks Advisory Board meeting on August 7, 2007.

Back by no nonsense facts and information from Skaters For Public Skateparks, EPSA explained what makes a high quality public skatepark and asked City folks to re-examine their investments in Skatewave and SOLO modular ramps as 9 of 10 El Paso skateparks were failing ramp set ups with Carolina being the exception.

The meeting ended with everyone in agreement that the future of El Paso skateparks should be concrete and Westside Community was next on the build list.

Former El Paso Parks Director Berry Russell heard all the concrete buzz and wanted to do something better. He invited EPSA reps out to the Westside Community park to discuss.

Honestly, we thought we’d be helping choose more ramps out of some catalogue. But instead, he suggested the possibility of converting the park’s adjacent banked ditch into a skate area. Cool outside-the-box idea, but the ditch had limitations and the existing concrete surface was already being damaged from large rocks tumbling down the channel during big rainstorms.

We asked the key question – what’s the buget? The answer – $200k and shrinking fast.

Design morphing

Design and budget morphed considerably and fast. Seth Johnson of Austin-based Ideal Skateparks designed the skatepark footprint pro bono to match meager budget. EPSA suggested refinements and Mijares-Mora Architects Steve Dominguez and Rob Park made the blue prints.

Suffice to say there were weird dynamics, too many chefs in the kitchen, and the design could’ve been way better.

EPSA solicited and successfully lined up shotcrete donations with Tony Mullen of MTI Concrete in exchange for corporate signage at the skatepark to make up for funding shortfalls, but it never happened. New City Parks Director Nannette Smejkal told us “we’ll find the money” and the budget ballooned from $167k to $457.

Sloppy Sam’s crew

The bid to build was won by general contractor CSA with Sloppy Sam Batterson’s company Breaking Ground Skateparks from Rhode Island hired for all the specialty concrete builds. Thanks to Sam, Nate, Tom, Brett, Fergie, Grapes and all the crew.

The skatepark’s cornerstone is a 6-foot bowl that hip into an A-framed 8.5 foot clamshell deep end with Federal Stone Coping.

The L-shaped street course includes two stair sets – 5 and 3 stair drops – a step up gap, hip banks, ledges, nipple bump, quarter pipe and a long China bank.

Grand Opening – July 8, 2009

Hundreds of enthusiastic skaters joined city officials to cut the ribbon and celebrate El Paso’s second custom concrete skatepark at Westside Community Park near Franklin High School.

“Thanks for being patient,” said El Paso Parks Director Nanette Smejkal. The 12,600 square foot facility took 4 months to build with a a $457k price tag – paid for with money from the 2000 Quality of Life bond election.

Prior to the dedication, the pros and bros from the Sugar Skateboard team performed a demo for the large crowd, some perched atop shade canopies for a better view. Team leader Marco says they were videotaping for a Fuel TV special.

“The original plan was for this skatepark was a flat slab with modular ramps. But give a lot of credit to Parks for listening to the skaters and embracing our vision,” said EPSA prez Paul Zimmerman to an amped up crowd. “A lot of people ask about our slogan “tienes concrete?” and what it means. It’s all about building better skateparks and concrete is where it’s at.”

Opening sesh

After all the dignitary stuff, it was time to skate. Traffic was heavy and the energy was pumping.

Old school skaters like Pancho and Dr. Skateboard joined young guns like Isaac Torres and Diego Alvarado in the bowl to show looky-loos and City folks what’s possible on the new terrain.

“The clam bowl is awesome,” said Jeremiah Risk, a high-flying skater from Temecula, CA, who drive an 18-wheeler for WWE. Says he was just passing thru when he heard about the grand opening.

Rocky Chavez

Crooks Skateshop  held a best trick contest on the park’s step up hubba.

The open jam was won by local Rocky Chavez – his prize winnings tossed to the crowd.

Thanks to the media for helping spread the good word. KVIA-TV’s Doppler Dave Speilman did live weather hits at 4 and 5, but had to bail out on the 6pm show after his videocam guy got bonked in the head by a loose board.

Univision 26, KFOX, KDBC and KTSM also covered the festivities.