Fri 15 Sep 2006
Round Rock skatepark project gets nitrus boost
Posted by seth johnson under skatepark , transition skating[41] Comments
For those who might not be aware, I’m in training. I’m planning to participate in the MS 150 "bike to the beach" which is a bicycle ride from San Antonio to Corpus Christi. I’ve built up a Peugeot 12-speed road bike (thanks Yellow Bike Project!) and I’m trying to log as many hours as possible on it in preparation for this two-day journey scheduled for October 7th. So, the other day I rode down to check out the status of this apartment pool that people have been riding for the past few months. It’s closed down now, so I’m posting these photos I shot at an earlier session. It wasn’t the type of pool people might use a word like ‘good’ to describe its skateability, but it certainly was a novelty. If you’re trying to sleuth out the location, the hint is that my round trip bike ride from 51st and Duval was about 8 miles.
Darrell Lowrance has been notified by the City of Round Rock that the Clay Madsen skatepark budget has been expanded from approximately $190,000 to $390,000. This is an incredible step by the city leadership to do right for Round Rock skateboarders. Grindline has already won the bid for building the bowl section of this park, and the city is planning to put the street course out to bid seperately. A design input meeting is scheduled for next tuesday for the bowl section of the skatepark. A Grindline representative will be available for jotting down these suggestions. The meeting agenda makes it sound like this is the ‘last design meeting,’ but I think that pertains to the bowl section. If you seek clarification, contact James Hemenes via the info at the foot of that page.
While I’m digging out photos and posting them online, here’s a funny letter that showed up in the Statesman last year or perhaps the year before.
September 16th, 2006 at 2:11 am
hey, I am riding the ms250 too! I will see you there.
September 16th, 2006 at 6:47 am
Seth, just to clarify– The city wants Grindline to design a 15,000 master plan for the skatepark, including both bowl and street areas. So there will be input gathered for both bowl and street areas.
It’s expected that Grindline with then build the bowl area as Phase 1, while another RFP will be issued to build the street area in Phase 2.
September 18th, 2006 at 6:19 am
Darrell, why did you go with Grindline for the Round Rock park? Did you see what they did with the Lakeway park?? WHAT A MESS!! What about just doing a plaza design. We already got two parks with bowls, why not do something different.
September 18th, 2006 at 8:19 am
dont worry!!!! my black ass will be there everyday to make sure those fuckups dont fuckup. they are just gonna love me.
p.s i have trouble with steel coping, so i am going to bitch wine and complain untilli get my way
September 18th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Grindline was the only company to bid.
Seth
September 18th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
atx- The original RFP deadline was pretty tight, which limited the number of builders able to get to Round Rock in time.
As far as doing something different, the other skateparks in Austin are 40 minutes away for us Round Rock residents. Add in weekday traffic and it’s not even an realistic option for us during the week. So the fact that there are other bowls in the area doesn’t help us much. Besides, we already had one public input meeting where the turnout was huge, and the written requests for tranny and street were roughly equal.
Grindline will do what they do best, and that’s build the bowl area. Phase 2 will be a street course, and it will most likely be built by local contractors/skaters. Don’t worry…street skaters will have plenty to skate.
September 18th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Darrell, so any ideas on the street course layout yet? Hopefully you thought about doing a plaza design instead of the traditional concrete street course.
September 18th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
I agree with atx.. they should do a plaza design for the street course.
September 18th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
I’m not sure exactly what’s in mind for the street area. I know that the locals have made a lot of suggestions for different street elements. You’re welcome to attend the meeting and suggest a street plaza and see how it goes over with the crowd.
Personally, I think it’s possible to do both some traditional street area stuff as well as plaza type elements.
September 18th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Note: That last comment by shralper was made by me.
September 18th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Dude, as long as the street course doesnt look anything like Lakeway or Maple Davis. It would be nice to NOT have a one inch ledge off the ground or a hand rail ending right into a fence!(lakeway) So who actually finalizes the street course layout? Who’s in charge?
September 18th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
either way, its the same people heading up all three public skate parks. Doesnt seem too “public” to me. And I dont think street skaters would mind waiting in traffic to skate something different. Youre crying about driving 40 minutes to roll around in a bowl…while as it stands now, we have to catch a plane for anything worth a crap. God forbid, we take into consideration the people who actually skate more than once a week for an hour or two…lol
September 18th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
James,
Where are you flying to skate something worth a crap? Like what do you think is the ideal? Also, what is the budget for building the thing you’re talking about?
Even with $390k, Round Rock isn’t going to be able to please all skaters. The same thing has happened with Mabel Davis. Younger skaters wanted stairs to jump off of. Older skaters wanted ‘flow’. So the final design was a compromise with the street being as much square footage as possible with as many of the requested elements as would fit in that area with the proper run-up, etc. The bowl was the ‘flow’. The guy Grindline sent onsite to run the project is fond of tight transitions, so that’s what he built in the bowl. Street skaters craving flow were left without reasonable hips or such for snapping ollies, etc. in the bowl and there’s none of that ‘flow’ in the street course. But for the skaters who like to snap switch heel flips off a stair set, they got their heart’s desire.
With Lakeway, there was little oversight by the skate community or the city. The street design that was created was completely discarded by the crew and they made it up as they went along. The foreman was the same fellow who built the Mabel Davis bowl, hence, Lakeway has a mega-tight bowl.
In the case of Round Rock, there will be a bowl built by Grindline. If Round Rock’s skaters want mellow transitions, they’re going to need to demand that at the public input meeting. I certainly will be. Plaza? Probably nothing like the $2,000,000 Winnipeg park. Ledges, hubbas, stairs, banks, and manual pads will fit into that budget. Or, a big flowy basin like Allen could probably work. The attendees will really need to decide amongst themselves what it’s going to be.
Seth
September 19th, 2006 at 1:03 am
That pic of DL busting that corner air is SWEET! Thanks for taking that Seth!
September 19th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Oh, also BIG thanks God bless to Darrel for working so tirelessly on the RR park. Mellow trannies, baby, mellow trannies :)
September 19th, 2006 at 4:08 am
Seth-
At least you somewhat understand my point. Looks like we need to have locals at the build site everyday until its done properly cause there seems to be a communication problem at the meetings. Im sure you guys didnt ask for “the bowl of death” when came to Maple Davis. haha. Anyway, I will be at the last meeting and hopefully the majority of the skate population (younger street skaters) will be able to get their ideas and opinions taken seriously.
September 19th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
Simple: COPY ALLEN TEXAS.
I went up there this past weekend (about 220 miles from Austin). Well worth it.
That park has 3 distinct pools, with varying transitions and numerous hips, one featuring a spine.
One pool leads into the “basin” street area.
I am a big fan of the street area that is surrounded on all sides by quarters and flat banks.
Another park to copy is DENVER.
Just go to Yahoo and type in Denver Skatepark Photos.
That place is a goddam dream, with one exception–all the locals will tell you the surface is a little to slick. VERY easy to slide out and crack skull.
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=images&imgsz=all&imgc=&vf=photo&va=denver+skatepark&fr=yfp-t-500&ei=UTF-8
September 19th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Well, for proof that people can complain about anything… check this out:
http://www.skatespots.com/co-dnv.htm
These are my observations:
1. Easy street stuff is skated the most. Have a section where the beginners can really hang out and not get in people’s way.
2. There needs to be at least some small mellow transition, e.g. 4 foot mini or bowl or quarter built into street course for kids to learn tranny on. Often there is simply no learning spot for tranny.
3. Design the park for the fact that there will be 10-40 people skating at the same time. Don’t design for what if I had 4 of my best friends and we have the whole place to ourselves. Although tons of connecting or crisscrossing lines are good for a solo session, they suck when there is a crowd, because everyone has to wait when you don’t know which way somebody is going to go. So, make some of it connect up, but make other sections that are totally distinct.
September 19th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Hopefully fireskill will bring these recommendations to tuesday’s meeting.
Seth
September 20th, 2006 at 4:03 am
“either way, its the same people heading up all three public skate parks. Doesnt seem too “publicâ€? to me.”
James– First of all, I had no involvement with Mabel Davis or Lakeway whatsoever. And by no means have any of the cities simply listened to our demands when it comes to design. The city has done everything they can to get design input from all skaters and develop some sort of consensus. So far, the requests have been for both a traditional street course and tranny area. I honestly don’t recall even one request for a “street plaza” design.
As far as having nothing good to skate, few cities across the country have a skatepark street area as nice as Mabel Davis. I have a hard time understanding your complaints.
Concerning “crying about driving 40 minutes”– Cities build skateparks primarily for young kids. Most of them are too young to drive, and few have parents willing to drive them 30 miles to a skatepark, even on weekends. MD and Lakeway may as well be in another state for them, so those parks should not dictate RR’s design.
Our ultimate goal as skatepark advocates (that’s those of us actually DOING SOMETHING to get parks built) is for skateparks to be as prevalent as soccer fields and tennis courts. We’ve actually made good progress in the Austin area (many more parks are in planning stages). Each skatepark needs to cater to all types of skating (whenever economically feasible).
September 20th, 2006 at 4:05 am
Fireskill– Your requests are absolutely dead-on right. From the beginning, I’ve been insisting that we build a minibowl section (4′ deep, 7′ tranny) that is either separate or segmented from a larger bowl so that multiple sessions can happen. I really like the basin-type street area of Allen as well.
I hope you can make it to the meeting.
September 20th, 2006 at 4:28 am
Cool, a skatepark in RR. I live at braker lane and dessau road and this would be convenient for me to skate more than I do now. I never go to Mabel Davis as the drive down 35 sucks big green donkey dicks during the week. I have been going to lakeway since it’s so awesome and the drive is kind of nice on the weekends – plus the saltwater pool next door is a smash hit with my 3 year old. I guesst hat will close for the “winter” though. Austin is finally on the map for groovy skateparks. keep them coming gents.
~j
September 20th, 2006 at 9:28 am
fireskill,
Again, I hope you bring your insights to the input meeting this evening. Additionally, I should mention that Allen had a budget of $650,000 and Denver had a several million dollar budget. When you’re working with that amount of concrete, you’ve got the ability to serve a bigger spectrum of skaters.
I think Round Rock will probably have stuff for beginner skaters. Additionally, in Austin, there’s a concrete miniramp project in the works which will help beginners learn transition.
Seth
September 20th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
“the plaza” was just an idea, thats all. AND YES, kids do have a problem getting to skateparks that are 30 miles away. AND YES, the majority (if not all of them) are young skaters who ride STREET. There will be about 10-40 waiting to hit the street course and then one old guy cruisin the bowl. Ive seen it at both sites. But yet they will sink alot of this money into the ground.
Thanks for all your advocating but its no big secret, youre not a street skater. But once YOUR bowl is finished, please let someone else take charge of Phase 2. Thats ALL anyone really wants anyways!
Now if you would excuse me, my son is begging me to buy him the new bowl video. See ya at the meeting.
September 20th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Thank God Grindline hates “street” skaters!
September 20th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
LAKEWAY IS AWESOME, I HOPE YOU ARE JOKING. And I agree with Ryan, all they care about building is lame bowl that people are only going to skate once a week for an hour which is the truth. Just go to Mable Davis on any given day and see 30 kids in the street course and maybe one or two people in the bowl.
September 20th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
OH MAN, JUST CAME FROM THE MEETING. WHAT CRAP. ONLY GETTING 5000 SQUARE FOOTAGE FOR THE STREET COURSE DESPITE THAT FACT THE EVERYBODY REQUESTED MORE STREET. NICE OBSERVATION MIKE, I AGREE 100%. IT WAS AWESOME SEEING EVERYBODY BORED OUT OF THEIR MIND WATCHING A 20 MINUTE BOWL PRESENTATION.
September 20th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
James– My bowl? I have no idea why you think the city is letting me design this park. The city has been taking design input via emails, phone calls, and meetings for over a year now. I, myself, was handing out flyers at local skateshops and skaters on the street telling everyone to check out the city’s webpage and email in their comments. I, myself, expected an overwhelming demand for street, but to my surprise, the vast majority asked for both street AND bowl. If you don’t believe me, call the city Parks Department and ask them.
Round Rock is not Austin. There’s tons of young kids in the 11-12 year old range that are just beginning to skate and they seem to want to skate everything, not just street (I dunno…maybe it’s the Tony Hawk games they grew up on, but they don’t have your “street only” bias). I even know of a bunch of RR teens that drained a pool to skate. I talk to the local skaters every chance I get, and I hear the same thing everytime– “We like street, and we like tranny”, or “we’d skate tranny if we had it”. And NOT ONCE has a kid here ever told me “Street only.”
The Mabel Davis and Lakeway bowls may not have many kids using them, but have you ever been to the Skatepark of Austin? The new minibowl is constantly filled with young skaters. Why? Because they finally have a place conducive to learning how to skate tranny. The Mabel Davis and Lakeway bowls are challenging designs even for us veteran vert skaters. That’s why I insist that the Round Rock skatepark have a minibowl area, whether it happens, I don’t know, but I will do everything I can to see that one gets built. Minibowls are fun for everyone of all skill levels, and a lot of street skaters like them as well, since most street moves can be done in them.
Grindline will be back in a week or two. I don’t know if you were there tonight, but hopefully you told them what you want in a skatepark. Just be aware that the city isn’t going to listen to just *you* anymore than they are listening to just *me*.
September 20th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Pay no attention to the “5,000 sq/ft street area” statement by Grindline. Here’s the city’s current plan as I was told last week–
- Grindline already won the bid for Phase 1, so they will build a bowl area for $190,000.
- Very soon (within weeks), Phase 2 will go out to bid for a $200,000 STREET AREA (take note that Round Rock will be spending MORE on the street area).
But here’s the deal– Grindline won’t be building the street area. They will offer a *design*, but that’s it. Phase 2 will be built by local contractors/skaters that can build it for much cheaper price per sq/ft. There are several builders in the area that are already very interested, and some have offered to build the street area for about half the cost of Grindline.
So the street area will most likely end up being around 10,000 sq/ft.
September 21st, 2006 at 2:33 am
“in Austin, there’s a concrete miniramp project in the works which will help beginners learn transition”
where will this be located?
September 21st, 2006 at 5:53 am
James,
Love your enthusiasm, if you need help organizing that enthusiasm into a productive movement please email me. With energy like yours there could be a full fledged skateplaza in the hill country a lot sooner than if you leave it up to fate. I have a lot of experience making that transformation from random to directed energy, ask Seth or Darrell they will vouch for that and I am willing to share my knowledge with most anyone who can bring something to the table.
Contrary to the assertion that a small number people are driving the direction of skateparks in the hill country is the FACT that hundreds are directly involved. If you want it to be your turn to join or lead those hundreds my email is:
jared_ff [at] yahoo [add a dot and add] com.
Bring your energy and enough dedication to be involved for 3 to 5 years. Drawing from my 15 years of experience in Industrial Design I will also add as you get directly involved you find out that you start with a dream, and by then end it becomes a hope that you can build even 40% of that dream by projects end. So also bring big dreams and enough optimism to overcome that 60% of assured failure.
My first piece of advice will be public:
You won’t gain much credibility with your intended audience (governments, fellow skaters, neighborhood associations, designers and construction companies) if you call the most used park structure in Austin (300 a day, more than most pools or basketball courts, or baseball fields) that has been the catalyst for a skatepark construction boom, (around 2.4 million in actual and planned construction) that has been featured in videos, magazines and ads, “crap”.
This is a positive sum equation, you will get farther acknowledging the positive parts of Mable Davis and assuring the community a skate plaza will offer just as many if not more. If you state you would rather have nothing than a mixed use park, you would be surprised how quickly a City Government will take you up on that deal. So celebrate all skatepark construction, each one added gets you closer to the goal of a skateplaza.
Second it is always better to focus on what you want than what you don’t want. We did this. We wanted in the next 10 years to be dozens of skateparks of all types in the hill country.
As first of her kind the inclusive design of Mabel Davis wasn’t an accident. It emerged from the input of hundreds of people and the resulting success helped convince numerous people in power about the viability of skateparks. It would not have happened that way if Mabel Davis had not been a mixe use park. That dusty old guy in the bowl owns land, pays taxes and votes. We needed that leverage to move the first of many political barriers. With success we have a bandwagon effect and barriers that were there before are falling like dominoes. Now the opportunity to start diversification in style is greater.
I am actually quite enthused to hear that there is an active debate about what type of park to build next. It is a refreshing change from the years of discussing when we would have anything at all.
– jared ficklin
– executive co-director
– austin public skatepark action committee
September 21st, 2006 at 6:26 am
Coming from a guy who skated and watched the death of many amazing famous skate parks, the exsistence of ANY skateparks in the Austin area is nothing but positive. The fact that the design is somewhat driven by those who have done the work to bring us the parks in the first part seems natural to me. The bowl at Mable Davis has caused this voting, land owning, tax paying dusty old dude to start skating again after many years. The street course at Mable Davis is Killer compared to many I saw in a recent trip to the Northwest. I agree that a tranny bowl (intermediary) would be ideal since we are currently lacking that in Austin. My point is we are lucky to have these skateparks and should treat them that way forever as well as be understanding of the different types of skaters there are and the need for terrain to suit all.
September 21st, 2006 at 8:18 am
Wow, great comments.
Liquid, the concrete miniramp is to be hosted in Patterson Park which is two blocks east of I35 on Airport blvd. More info will be forthcoming.
Seth
September 21st, 2006 at 10:34 am
Jrawk,
Thanks for the info. Its amazingly hard to find the right people to contact. Ive emailed Round Rock officials but have gotten zero response. The fact that we even have public parks is a huge accomplishment. And the efforts are greatly appreciated. By no means am I saying the street courses we now have are total “crap”. But there are alot of problems with them. We can always strive to do better and Im assuming that is everyones goal here. Im not dusty, but I do own land, pay taxes and vote. Thanks again for the email. Hopefully “ATX” will see your info too, as he is admittingly more knowledgable than I and willing to put in the time to keep our skate community progressive in a positive way.
September 21st, 2006 at 11:04 am
No problem james. I hope ATX sees it as well. We are always recruiting!
– jared
September 23rd, 2006 at 5:50 am
that would be sweet if patterson gets a mini ramp, that is a good location for me. even mabel davis seems to far for me and i live in central austin.
September 24th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
I’ve recently made observations about today’s current skate scene, and here’s what really stood out. All the magazine photos of street skating are ALWAYS IN THE STREET, despite the fact that more and more skateparks have street courses.
The photos tell the real story– street skaters will always find street spots more appealing than skatepark street courses, for all sorts of reasons. It’s also why most street skaters don’t even bother getting involved in building skateparks. It’s just like the hardcore tranny skaters who desire empty pools over skatepark bowls, but there’s one HUGE difference– Street spots are practically everywhere. Empty pools are extremely rare, even non-existent.
When a town doesn’t have a tranny, most pure tranny skaters quit skating. But when a town doesn’t have a street course, well, street skaters just continue skate the real stuff they find more appealing anyway. Some hardcore street skaters have even defined Mabel Davis as “crap” (thus proving my point). Heck, street skaters can spend hours riding a “manual pad” at a run-down gas station. In some ways, I envy them. I’d love to be able to get a thrill from riding something so small, simple, and commonplace.
Which is why all skateparks IMO need tranny.
Street skaters have already lobbied successfully in some towns for city-sanctioned “skate zones” at some of their favorites spots. They’ve even gotten “skate stoppers” removed. If I wanted a pure “street plaza”, I’d lobby the city to build a real street plaza, with ledges, stairs, rails, planters, benches, picnic tables (all skate-spec’d of course) and get it defined as a “dual purpose, skate zone”. The city would get a real street plaza, and I’d be “keeping it real” at the same time.
Sort of a 2-for-1 deal. It sounds like an easier sell to me than even a pure skatepark. It’s an idea whose time has come. If I were a street skater, I’d be working the idea BIG TIME. Just remember though, like Jared said, be prepared to spend 3-4 years making it happen. There might even be a real “street plaza” already in the works that could be built with skaters in mind so it could might happen sooner (actually I believe Seth has already been looking into this). It wouldn’t even have to be designated as a “skatepark” in the budget, since you really don’t want a “skatepark” anyway; you just want a good place to skate without being hassled by the cops.
September 26th, 2006 at 6:10 am
September 26th, 2006 at 10:17 am
Click on the link below to watch Darrell’s nightly dream…haha. If you remember this, you know youve been skating a while!!! Hilarious!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0×8J1V0nCk
September 26th, 2006 at 10:28 am
If the link doesnt work…go to youtube.com and type in “gleaming the cube”…click on “intro” clip!!
September 27th, 2006 at 4:54 am
Pretty funny…first time I’ve ever seen that. Actually, it just shows what extreme measures it takes to find an empty pool, and that the bust factor on private property is typically far worse than any city-owned ledge or stairs.
Hmmmmm…street ollies and kickflips, all the way back in 1985??? Note we skated everything back then. Why has this changed?
Also check out the clip from “Police Academy 4″ (circa 1986), where the Powell “vert” team is ollieing down some big stair sets. We didn’t discrimate between tranny and street. Neither do most 8-11 year old kids today that haven’t been brainwashed by the skate media yet (my son and his friends included).
http://www.youtube.com
Note: search for police academy 4