Youths to get skate park of their own

Dan Kulin

Monday, Dec. 29, 2003 | 11:25 a.m.

After years of watching skateboard parks sprout up elsewhere throughout the Las Vegas Valley, North Las Vegas skateboarders will finally getting a skate park in their hometown.

The park doesn't have a name yet and probably won't open for at least a year, but skateboarders are excited nonetheless. For many it will mean no longer depending on parents or buses for rides to parks in Las Vegas or unincorporated Clark County.

The planned park, which for now is being called the Lower Las Vegas Wash Detention Pond/Park, would be built on vacant land off Hammer Lane near the intersection of Ann Road and Camino Al Norte. The park would also serve as a flood detention basin for a 100-year flood.

Fourteen-year-old Jared Johnson said the new park would mean he could go skateboarding more often.

"Now it stinks because I have to wait for my mom and dad to get home and drive me," he said. Once the new park is open, Johnson said he'll easily be able to roll to it.

"In my neighborhood there are lots of kids that skate but can never get rides over here," Johnson said during a break in riding at a Las Vegas skate park near the intersection of Decatur Boulevard and Alexander Road. "It would be really good."

North Las Vegas resident James Morgan, 19, has a car so getting to a skate park isn't a problem for him, but he agreed it is for others.

"I wish there was one closer to my house, that way I could take all my little brothers," he said.

"There's a lot of other North Las Vegas kids that would use it too," Morgan said.

The skateboard park will take up less than an acre of the 14.5 acre park, which is expected to cost about $2.9 million in all. Funding for the park is included in the current year's city budget. The park will be paid for with money the city receives from the residential construction tax, 36 cents for every square foot of every new home.

The skateboard park will feature above ground ramps bolted into the ground, instead of a bowl dug into the ground. City officials plan to hold public meetings with skateboarders who will be asked to help design the park so it will be popular.

North Las Vegas Parks and Recreation Department Manager Mike Henley said a design of the park will probably be ready by the end of June. Park construction will take about six months, he said.

While North Las Vegas is working on its first skateboard park now, skateboard parks have been around elsewhere in the Las Vegas Valley for years.

The first one opened about five years ago,and there are now 21 skateboard parks in the valley, said Joe Wichert, extreme sports coordinator with Las Vegas' Leisure Services Department.

Wichert said the parks have been very popular and virtually problem free. There have been some graffiti and litter problems at the parks, but Wichert said it was no more than at any other park.

He said many North Las Vegas youths frequent Las Vegas parks, and often ask when their city will get a skate park. Wichert predicted the North Las Vegas park will be so popular the city will be forced to build more.

Henley said the idea of building a skate park in North Las Vegas "has been rattling around the city for a number of years."

However, concerns with liability issues and whether skateboarding was a fad or here to stay kept the city from building such a park.

"At first it looked like a fad but now its a recreational trend that is here to stay," Henley said.

Mayor Michael Montandon said he opposed the city opening a skateboard park until he was convinced the city's liability was limited -- Wichert said it's no different than if an accident happened to someone while playing baseball at a city park.

Now Montandon favors the idea, especially because the planned skateboard park will be made up of large above ground pieces bolted into the ground, and therefore able to be moved or removed.

"It will be flexible, and able to change with the times," the mayor said.