City officials are giving kids a place to take their boards, hassle-free.
By MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published January 18, 2004
ZEPHYRHILLS - By summer, Krusen Field will have hips, pyramids, launch boxes and rails. But no water plant.
Plans for a $120,000 skateboard park are taking shape now that the City Council has given approval. Recreation officials are gathering suggestions from teenagers for the park, slated to have ramps, lighting, bleachers and 14 modular obstacles.
Meanwhile, nearby Zephyrhills Spring Water Co., which talked at one time of building onto its operation in the historic city park, now has "no immediate plans" for expansion, a spokeswoman said.
All immediate plans talk of skateboarding.
Assistant city planner Billy Poe will meet soon with some local skateboarders - from Stewart Middle School and Zephyrhills High School - to learn what they envision.
"They're going to give us their input on what the layout should be, what the best flow would be, the best lines," Poe said. "(We want to) let them have a chance so they feel like they've helped out."
Downtown business owners have long complained about kids skating on sidewalks, down stairway railings and on benches. The police station and City Hall also are popular hangouts.
Shane LeBlanc, Zephyrhills' parks and facilities manager, said some of the planned park structures - known as urban equipment - mimic those downtown features. Except unlike the metal bar along the staircase at City Hall, these things are made for skating.
The 70-by-165-foot park will accommodate kids of different ages and ability levels. And the equipment, made by Skate Wave, is all modular, so it can be rearranged into different formations.
A Pasco County skateboard park in New Port Richey also features Skate Wave equipment, so swapping between the parks would be an option.
The city reached an agreement with the county last year to an even split on the price of constructing the skateboard park. But the financing agreement is contingent on Zephyrhills implementing recreation impact fees on new construction. Zephyrhills has hired a consultant to conduct a study on the impact fees and should have the results soon.
Should the agreement with the county fall through, City Council members approved going forward with the park anyway. The city has budgeted $60,000 - half the projected cost - but LeBlanc said any shortfall would just have to wait until the next budget is approved in October.
"It might just slow us down a little bit, but our overall scope shouldn't change," he said.
Zephyrhills Spring Water officials first approached the city in late 2001 about buying the 32-acre park that for decades has been the mainstay of youth sports in Zephyrhills. The company made tentative plans to put new storage and production facilities on the park land while promising to fund a new park elsewhere in the city.
But residents came out fighting. People who spent their childhoods on the ball fields didn't want to see a piece of city history vanish. Property owners in nearby neighborhoods like Meadowood worried about their home values. It also became a campaign issue in the 2002 city election.
Eventually, things quieted down.
Now, the joint city-county investment into a Krusen Field skateboard park all but means the issue is dead.
"There are no immediate plans in the foreseeable for any modifications to the plant," said Jane Lazgin, spokeswoman for Nestle Waters, which owns the Zephyrhills operation. "If ever there was a need for modifications, we would approach it as a good neighbor."
She added that company engineers don't anticipate any conflicts because of the park. "They don't think that the skateboarding would present a problem if that was looked at in the future."
Restrooms and water fountains already are in place at Krusen Field, located between Alston and C avenues on the east side of town. It's not too close to any neighborhoods, which could be bothered by noise and bright lights.
And the skateboard park will take the place of an inline hockey rink that gets minimal use. That helps keep construction costs down, freeing more funds for skating ramps, LeBlanc said.
"We're saving so much money by not having to do the site work and build the actual infrastructure," LeBlanc said. "We're essentially getting more bang for our buck."
The park's hours of operation haven't been determined, but LeBlanc said it will probably close about 8 p.m. daily. Rules will be posted, but the park will be unsupervised except for police patrols.
When the park is completed and ready for the long-waiting skaters and their boards, LeBlanc said Skate Wave plans a grand opening with a professional skateboarder to give demonstrations and sign autographs.
"When we confront kids that are skating downtown or around City Hall or the police station, their first comment to us is, "Where else are we going to go?"' LeBlanc said. "So we're providing them someplace to skate."
- Molly Moorhead can be reached at 352 521-5757, toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6108, then 21, or moorhead@sptimes.com
