2007: The Year Ahead in Portland Skateparks
2007 looks to be a good year for Portland’s skaters. Complementing Burnside and Pier Park are three new skateparks that could be done by the end of the year. Furthest along is Glenhaven Park’s skatepark on NE 82nd Siskiyou right next to Madison High School. It is 11,000 square feet, two bowls and a large street area. A Dreamland Skateparks creation, its street course has received extensive input from local skater Jesse Bracewell and design assistance from SPS board member Mark Conahan. Look for an opening day in late spring or early summer.
Next is likely Ed Benedict Park, a 9,000 square foot site on SE 100th & Powell Boulevard. On January 9, Portland Parks & Recreation and its commissioner in charge, Dan Saltzman, hosted a small group at city hall to discuss potential design outcomes. We articulated our highest priority: a skatepark development plan that included money to support a roof and lights at one of Portland’s parks so skaters would finally have a safe place to skate throughout the year.
Following our request, local skater Taj Hanson unveiled a memo, drafted with assistance from Parks’ skatepark project manager Rod Wojtanik, calling for a skate plaza. Commissioner Saltzman announced one week later that Ed Benedict would be 70% plaza 30% transition, and that a fourth park at Gabriel Park, SW 45th Avenue & Vermont Street, would prioritize transition. Rod Wojtanik has suggested that Gabriel Park include a snake run due to its topography.
Having four parks spread across town will be a great addition to Portland’s skate scene. After so many years of delay on public skatepark development prior to Pier Park, Portlanders are fortunate to have a commissioner in charge of Portland Parks & Recreation in Dan Saltzman who is committed to seeing world-class skateparks built in a timely manner.
The Battle Ground
And although not in the city proper, we cannot ignore what may be to be the best park of all. If you have car access, you will no doubt get to Battle Ground, Washington. Located at SE Grace Avenue & E Main Street, Battle Ground will be the Northwest park that most completely provides for both street and transition with its 25,000 square foot expanse. It is also a first in the skatepark business: Grindline designed and Dreamland built.
Battle Ground Washington skatepark photos by Thor. Courtesy of Skate and Annoy.
Battle Ground is important park for Portland’s skaters for a number of reasons. Aside from shaping up to be an epic skatepark, you have to wonder how a town of fewer than 14,000 can have the foresight and budget to build a 25,000 square foot skatepark. Meanwhile Portland spent more than two years and $200,000 evaluating potential skatepark sites and found only one greater than 15,000 square feet. (Increased density resulting from the urban growth boundary is not a factor.) And that is to say nothing of our poor brethren in Seattle whose years of advocacy and public process have yet to yield even one new skatepark.
Newberg skatepark photo by MC
Certainly one factor that explains the “Newberg effect” at work in Battle Ground is the limited scope of bureaucracy. Newberg, of course, was the first of the small towns with modest local economies to produce an epic skatepark. Klamath Falls is another. (Epic in size, not necessarily street terrain.) In cities like Portland more rules—both written and unwritten—apply to site development than any one human being can remember.
Occasionally the rules contradict each other, or at a minimum constrain project success. At Pier Park, for instance, our redevelopment was limited to 11,000 square feet to avoid “Type III” land use review process which would have required thousands of dollars and many months in review. Anybody who understood the enormous latent demand for a quality skatepark in Portland could tell you the park should be as big as the budget allowed—like Newberg. However, 11,000 square feet was the maximum for Pier because the rules said so.
Still more important than Battle Ground’s size is what the size, when designed well, can provide for skaters. For years, skaters who prefer street terrain have complained with increasing hostility about skateparks failing to meet their preferences, and blaming contractors and even volunteer advocates in the process. What Battle Ground is shaping up to prove is that when the footprint and budget allow, everybody can be happy at the skatepark.
A “Battle Ground” in Portland?
Does Portland have a Battle Ground-scale park in the making? Right now, we only have one site: Steel Bridge. And given its urban location it will be complex (and expensive) to complete. The reality is that Steel Bridge is probably years away from completion. Meanwhile our sites actually get smaller after Gabriel is built. Without a consensus vision for skatepark development, including a timeline, skaters may continue pointing fingers at contractors and each other demanding more of this less of that, etc.
The frustration is understandable. Few parks in the Portland Metro region accommodate street well. And, until Pier was built, no park in the entire Pacific Northwest provided a bowl truly sufficient for vert sessions. What many skaters fail to understand though, because they tend to be new to public process, is that internal friction does not encourage city decision-makers to facilitate good outcomes. Instead, finger-pointing discourages city decision-makers from engaging the topic at all. Elected officials have plenty to worry about; if an interest group cannot agree on how to meet its needs, why build anything at all?
See the Big Picture
Portland’s skaters need to shift focus from any one park to the broader implications of system build-out. Which parks should be built next? What kind of terrain should they provide? When will skaters have access to the five year-round facilities articulated in the SPLAT recommendations adopted by Parks? (SPS has a $28,000 request for preliminary engineering in to Parks for a roof structure at Pier. We expect to hear whether that request will be honored in mid-February.) How do we ensure proper balance between disparate terrain preferences as the system builds out? Should skaters be charged to answer these questions ourselves, or should we rely on non-skaters to decide for us?
As the next three parks come online hopefully this year, these are the questions we local skaters should be asking ourselves.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Wow. Stoked to hear about the street plaza idea at SE 100th and Powell (that is biking distance for me) and the Gabriel Park tranny based park. I like Rod’s idea of having the park reflect the landscape (ie a snakerun). It is also great that these next few parks are being spread throughout the four quadrants. See you at Glenhaven.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:13 am
I guess you are at least acknowleding the lack of street-type obstacles in northwest skateparks, but you don’t examine the issue objectively. Do you really believe there are no other bowls that can accomodate a vert session? What about Beaverton or Lincoln City or Newberg or Aumsville or West Linn or Astoria or Klamath or Orcas or Hailey or Carnation or Medford? I’m sure there are plenty more. Is Pier Park just your favorite? It seems a bit cramped and difficult to me–even for vert skaters.
I think it is time for pointing fingers. There are plenty of gnar-pits around for hesh dude, barney, and old-timer to get their slash on. Grindline and Dreamland are shoveling in the cash, while proving what macho concrete workers they are with over-vert, and generally building what they want to skate, which also happens to be what a lot of the older skate advocates want. What about the kids? What about the rest of us that like variety and creativity?
My preference is for parks with small, basic obstacles that are spread out and easy to skate. Those are parks where anyone can just cruise or learn tricks. Then maybe I can take those tricks to a real street spot or an actual swimming pool or even an existing epic skatepark. It is a bitch to learn a new trick in a vert bowl with no flat walls. There are companies elsewhere building well-rounded parks. I think Newline Skateparks in Canada does an exceptional job. Have you visited any of their new parks? Do you think anyone for Dreamland or Grindline has? Do those guys even give a shit anymore? Do they think about having a diverse and vibrant skateboard scene in the future? Grindline was not a helpful part of the skatepark struggle in my town. Next month Dreamland is supposed to start building a Grindline designed 11′ deep bowl w/ over-vert in the swamp here. It will be wet half the year and the rest of the time the hundreds of kids who come to the park can stand around and watch the handful of skaters who take the bowl over in heated one at a time sessions.
Neil Johnson
Bellingham, WA
March 7th, 2007 at 10:29 am
We care, dude! You think we got paid to build and maintain this forum? Personally I have no use for the kind of spread out obstacles park you describe but I have sought out as many outside opinions and input as I could find when working on a skatepark design. It gets discouraging when you hand off big areas of your design for other people to work on and when it’s built people still complain!
Pier Park’s big bowl is everything I ever wanted but it is just a third of that park. I never skate the rest of it but lots of people do.
We need to build some good street spots for people to skate - no question. I know Dreamland or Grindline could build a street plaza like Kettering, you’d probably get the most amazing skate surfaces ever out of those guys. I know they want to do it. but I’m guessing building a street plaza would be boring work. Skateparks from Dreamland and Grindline seem more like the work of sculptors and artists to me would you go to a gallery looking for someone to paint your fence?
I think you have some good ideas Neil, and you should stick with it to help get the park you want to see built. The Battle Ground street section looks like it is going to be pretty amazing but you guys don’t want me in there, I’d probably be wearing shorts and maybe (gasp!) kneepads.
March 14th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Gabriel skatepark wow!!! I have been skaten over 12 years and know every skateboarder in SW. The last thing any of them want is another Tranny park. Im sure it will be good ethier way but i know for a fact that the skateboarder’s in this area want street and alittle tranny. I will be upset if i finally get a park in my area that is Big tranny and a snake run. Make Plaza’s with obscure tranny thats what skateboarder’s want. Not just one thing it gets old when its just the same damn thing at every park.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:17 am
yah neil.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
You guys want a little pole, gaps,ledges and a couple slabs. That stuff is already abundant on the street. Thats why it’s called street. try doing street stuff on some trannies and watch what happens to your skating. pop flip grind flip style is one dimensional compared to what you can do on the stuff dreamland is creating. Use your imaginations and quit letting 411 tell you how to skate. I live by Gabriel Park, skate and you don’t know for a fact what every skater in your neiborhood wants cause you only know the skaters that are like you.
I agree that there needs to be some representation of what your click wants and I think you should consider designs you want in a way that flows with the dreamlands style of building. If you second guess the eminent skatepark builders of our times your going to get some halfarsed mediocre crap like Tualatin or Woodburn.
May 7th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Neil asks, “What about Beaverton or Lincoln City or Newberg or Aumsville or West Linn or Astoria or Klamath or Orcas or Hailey or Carnation or Medford?”
Answer: To host a true vert session you need opposing walls at least 11 feet deep with at least a foot of vert, and ideally bigger. Beaverton had the vert ramp, but it’s been years since it was around. X Games, etc. ramps are 13 + the extensions. So full-on vert jocks would tell you even Pier at 11.5 (10+1.5) doesn’t cut it. Hailey transitions from 10 to 13 at the apex of the deep end. That’s the closest thing to an X Games vert set-up in a public skatepark anywhere. All the other parks referenced are either smaller in wall size and/or lack opposing walls that accommodate the vert pendulum swing. Thanks for asking.
More broadly, the question suggests that any wall with vert, or at least any semi-big wall with vert, accommodates a vert session. This is equivalent to saying late 90s/early 00s Site Design parks - like those in Arizona, if you’re familiar - have proper street sections because they have sections where the largest wall is 6 feet or under. Of course, any knowledgeable street skater would tell you that a “street” section comprised of quarterpipes of varying heights is far from replicating a legitimate street skating experience. That’s why Rob Dydrek got into the plaza business.
I’ve been to Vancouver, BC and to its downtown plaza. More importantly, I brought one of Portland’s elected officials with me so he could see it and arranged a meeting with New Line’s leadership as well. SPS doesn’t get much credit for its street advocacy efforts from Portland’s street skaters, even though we’ve (a) ensured Pier had a street section designed by a Portland street skater (Jesse Bracewell), (b) convinced Portland Parks & Recreation to elongate Glenhaven’s original footprint to facilitate a better space for street skating, (c) volunteered dozens of hours of professional graphic design work to facilitate a design vision between Jesse Bracewell and Dreamland, (d) brought an elected official to see Van BC’s plaza and meet with New Line’s leadership, and (e) more. We get it; Portland’s street skaters won’t be content until they see a plaza. That’s what’s coming with Ed Benedict.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:03 am
I agree with shoebottom, what every skateboarder in portland wants is street oriented skateparks, we have enough tranny parks, as fun as they can be.