Charles Oliver
charlesoliver@daltoncitizen.com
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Dalton skateboarders may get a 5,000-square-foot present this Christmas.
Hays Hitzing, director of skate park development for Spohn Ranch, says a new skate park at James Brown Park could be ready by December, weather permitting.
Spohn Ranch is the California firm hired by Dalton Parks and Recreation to build the $100,000 facility at the city-owned park, and Monday night Hitzing met with about a dozen local skateboarders at the recreation department to find out what they want in the park.
The overwhelming consensus among those present was that they wanted a “street” style park with ledges, rails, stairs and ramps rather than a “bowl” style park.
“That’s pretty typical,” said Hitzing, whose firm has designed some 5,000 skate parks. “The split is typically about 85 percent street and 15 percent bowl.”
He asked the skateboarders to rank the particular features they wanted, and receiving the most votes were ledges, stairs and a mini-ramp.
Then he split the skateboarders into two groups and asked them to lay out the park they’d like to see, a process he said put Dalton “on the advanced side” of skate park development.
“This sort of public involvement just doesn’t always occur,” he said. “There’s often more limited engagement. I will take the information we gather here and take it back to Aaron Spohn and Damon Spohn, the designers, and they will come up with a design that fits all the criteria.”
Aaron Spohn helped develop the X Games and designed the original course, and provides design services for many major skateboarding events.
Hitzing said the Dalton skateboarders were giving him a lot of good information to work with.
“They are putting the features together well. I can see how everything coordinates with everything else,” he said.
Plans for the skate park started rolling in March, when Victor Cervantes spoke to the Dalton City Council and presented council members with a petition with 209 signatures requesting a skate park. He said he was moved to act after a friend of his younger brother was hit by a car while skateboarding.
“I’m glad that we will have a safe place to skate,” he said Monday night.
The skateboarders said they currently skate where they can, on sidewalks, in parking lots and on the streets.
“It will be good to have a place to skate where we won’t get kicked out,” said Brandon Wright, 13. “That happens a lot.”
Hitzing said a few of the features in the park will appeal solely to the advanced skateboarder but many can be used by both beginners and advanced skateboarders.
He said the final design of the park should take about two to three weeks to complete, and after it is finished construction will take about three months if the weather cooperates.
To keep up with the latest developments on the Dalton skate park, go to the recreation department’s website, www.dprdsports.com, and click on “Skate Park Facebook Page” on the left.
