Skate Park Supporters Eye July Opening

The backers of a new skate park planned for Dixwell’s Scantlebury Park plan to have the concrete course built and open before this July’s Summer Olympics, now that the city is officially the project’s trustee.

At Tuesday night’s full Board of Alders meeting in the Aldermanic Chambers on the second floor of City Hall, the alders voted unanimously in support of an amending a resolution they first passed last August related to the planned Scantlebury Park skate park.

The amendment identifies the city, and no longer Yale’s Schwarzman Center, as the trustee for the skate park project.

Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison said that the funding that had been lined up for the project prior to the August 2019 vote remains in place. The state-funded Could Be Fund is still slated to give $50,000. Yale’s Schwarzman Center will still be giving $25,000. The city will still be chipping in another $25,000 in Parks Department capital funds.

The only difference now is that the city is legally responsible for hiring the construction contractor and overseeing the completion of the project.

“This park is going to be so helpful to all young people, old people, whoever wants to get out and exercise,” Morrison said as she urged her legislative colleagues to vote in support of the amendment. ​“So often our children are attached to their electronics. They’re attached to their phones.

“This skate park is going to really encourage friendships, relationships, and learning how to fall and get back up.”

After the vote, Morrison said that she plans to work with Dixwell community members, the city’s Engineering and Parks Departments, and the project’s original supporters, Steve Roberts and J. Joseph, to try to get the skate park built and available to use by the start of this year’s Summer Olympics on July 24.

This is the first year that skateboarding will be featured as an Olympic sport, she pointed out. Having the new local skate park open by that time will give kids and adults inspired by professionals at the Olympics to try out the sport for themselves.

Morrison added that the final placement of the skate park in Scantlebury Park will ultimately be decided upon by the Parks Commission.

City Engineer Giovanni Zinn confirmed after the meeting that July is indeed the target date by which the city hopes to have the skate park built and open.

He said Parks and Engineering have put out a request for proposals (RFP) for the design build for the project.

“There’s still conversations with the community left to happen,” he said. ​“We haven’t picked a contractor yet.”

“We’ve heard the outreach from the community,” he added, particularly around concerns that the originally envisioned project will add too much noise to an already busy public park. He said those concerns will certainly inform the final design selected for the project.

The skate park project earned push back last summer from a select number of neighbors and community organizers, who criticized the project as, among other concerns, an unwanted intrusion of Yale money and students into a neighborhood public park.