希瑟·鲁尔

Lonsdale’s skate park hasn’t even been up and running for a full spring-summer season yet, 但它已经是一个很受欢迎的地方了.

“The skate park has been used way more than I think anyone anticipated,” said Lonsdale City Administrator Joel Erickson. “当然我. It’s the word ‘skate park,’ so you immediately focus on skateboards, right? Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Lonsdale’s first skate park is located within the already established Sticha Park and sees plenty of activity from users with bikes, 摩托车, 和滑板. Kids of various ages — and their families — use the park, 埃里克森说.

The city officially welcomed the skate park to Lonsdale with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Aug. 8, 2023. 自开业以来, Erickson has been pleased with how much enthusiasm it has generated and the positive impacts it’s having on the community.

“My wife works at the middle school here, and she tells me she hears her kids all the time talking about it,埃里克森说. “这绝对是一个巨大的成功.”

The benefits of the skate park have proved to more than outweigh any concerns residents had before its development, 埃里克森说. 让自己更积极主动, the park has a list of rules and regulations, and can only be used until dusk since the city is not planning to light the skate park.

漫长的等待

This project was a long time coming, especially for generations of preteens and teenage residents. Different groups of kids cycled multiple petitions at various points during the past decade, getting resident signatures that they then brought to either City Hall or park board meetings to see if a skate park could happen in Lonsdale.

But the cost of the park wasn’t always feasible for the project to move forward. Until the summer of 2022, when Shakopee put its skate park equipment up for auction. Lonsdale was the successful bidder, getting the equipment for less than $1,000. Lonsdale’s 公共工程 Department used their vehicles to disassemble and transport the equipment to Lonsdale, 把它储存在空地上.

Lonsdale 公共工程 Director Joe Dornfeld and his team of seven inspected and evaluated each skate park piece and then rebuilt all of the park’s obstacles in late winter and early spring 2023. 他们一次只做一件, getting some work done during the few down days of a busy snow season.

“我们会把它带到这里来, and if there was rotten lumber or if the skate surface or rails or whatever needed to be replaced, 我们会把这些碎片一块一块地修好,多恩菲尔德说.

在那个春天, the city moved forward with bids for the dirt work and concrete pad for the skate park; the concrete pad was constructed in early summer 2023. 一旦混凝土准备好了, public works crews transported all the skate park obstacles to the area and set them up, laying it out in a similar way to what Shakopee had done, Dornfeld说.

滑冰公园大约是1,000 feet to the west of the public works shop, and Dornfeld and his crew “were blown away” at the skate park’s popularity.

“We thought it would get used but had no idea … there’s 20 kids there every night,多恩菲尔德说. “It’s exceeded expectations as far as usage.”

项目费用，节省产生

Getting the skate park equipment through auction helped Lonsdale save a lot of money on the project. 费用大约是220美元,000, 大约160美元,000 of that going toward the 90-by-130-foot concrete pad (11,总面积700平方英尺), 大约53美元,000 spent on the obstacles and their repairs. According to Erickson’s online research, the average skate park costs about $55,000 per square foot. So, 一个10分的滑板公园,000-square-foot pad would bring the cost for that skate park to $550,000.

“So, we’re into it for less than half,埃里克森说. “我认为这很棒. At half the cost, this is nothing less than a home run.”

Getting the equipment via auction paid off. 来支付项目的剩余费用, Lonsdale used some funds from its municipal liquor store, 还有一些城市预算的钱, and some American Rescue Plan Act funds. There wasn’t a lot of interaction between Lonsdale and Shakopee for this project, with the equipment coming through the auction. But 埃里克森说 the Shakopee staff was great to work with and was always willing to provide information or answer questions about the skate park equipment.

“It was really kind of copy, cut, and paste for us,多恩菲尔德说. “Shakopee had it all set up … It was pretty straight forward.”

Heather Rule是一名自由撰稿人.