By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
YACHATS – Building a skate park in a town awash in retirees might seem like a ploy to entice the grandchildren to visit — but it can also be an amenity as popular as playgrounds that attract not only the young but the young at heart.
“When you ride your skateboard it’s kind of like when you are learning to ride a bike and you take your training wheels off – and you’re free,” professional skateboarder Kevin Kowalski said before Monday’s groundbreaking ceremony for the new Yachats skatepark. “It’s all you and the wind against your face, blowing your hair and you’re just feeling great.”
The $115,000 project will replace the outdated and dilapidated skate park that sat on a narrow concrete pad behind city hall. It was the brainchild of Kowalski, who was raised and still lives in Seal Rock, and Katherine Rose, a skateboarder and former Yachats resident who now lives in Portland.
The new skate park is designed to accommodate both novice and advanced riders.
Monday’s groundbreaking ceremony began after crews from Dreamland Skateparks of Lincoln City, a world renowned skate park builder, scraped pieces of the old park off the concrete pad. The company expects to complete the 3,000 square foot park by late January.
“We are thrilled to have you all here today as we embark on this exciting project to enhance our community’s recreational opportunities,” Yachats city manager Bobbi Price said to a group of 25 who ducked out of torrential rain and into the Pavilion to celebrate.
City councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey has two sons who skateboard. She voiced her support, saying the park is important to the community and gives youth something to enjoy now while also “taking care of the generations that come after us.”
Kowalski and Rose, who led the Yachats Skatepark Committee, spoke about the park’s importance to the community’s youth. Dreamland co-owner Danyel Scott thanked Polly Plumb Productions board member Meredith Howell for the “time and love” she put into tracking down grants.
“You are one of the most amazing, resourceful women I’ve ever met,” Scott said.
Plenty of funding help
Funding for the park began with $15,000 from Rogue Brewing, which makes a Dreamland Beer whose proceeds goes to Dreamland. The two companies then collaborate to choose one project each year. The city of Yachats followed by chipping in $20,000.
After that it was Howell, who pulled in $60,000 via grants — with another $10,000 pending — along with fundraising and donations from community members. If the pending grant comes through, funding for the park will exceed its goal.
It will be about one year from the time Kowalksi and Rose first approached Dreamland to the park’s completion.
“Which is crazy to think about, that we were able to turn it around so successfully in such a short amount of time,” said Scott, who explained to YachatsNews that it is a non-profit project for Dreamland. “We are able to do this in December, which is not our busy season. And we own all of our equipment and are owner-ran so we are able to donate and bring a lot of resources that we wouldn’t normally be able to do on a project.”
While the skatepark is small because of limitations with wetlands and digging restrictions, it will be both a functional and an artistic piece designed with the help of community members.
“It’s going to have a large skate-able whale tail,” Scott said. “It’s going to have a ledge with fossils imprinted into the concrete to tie in some of the natural elements of the location. We are going to do a clamshell pocket-kind-of-bowl feel but it will be open in a clam half-bowl feature, and a little wall ride area and little spines. So there are quite a few features where you can ride it as a beginner but also as an advanced rider.”
Kowalski, who became a professional skater in 2012 and won a bronze medal in the 2016 X Games, travels the coast skating in different parks.
“Dreamland Skateparks is renowned for building the best skate parks in the world,” he said. “They are actually the skate park building company that started the skate park revolution back with Burnside in Portland. We are really fortunate to have them here locally. And the fact that we’re able to get a committee together, get a budget and a plan and funding all within a year, I don’t think it’s ever been done.”
Although the Yachats’ park is small, it has features to attract skaters of all levels who travel in search of good skateparks, Kowalski said.
Kowalski credits former city manager Heide Lambert, Howell and Scott for making the new park a reality. And Rose, he said, “deserves a hats off because she’s kept us all in the loop” by organizing meetings.
Rose said her collaboration with Kowalski was a “shared dreaming process of rethinking a local skate park” they both care deeply about.
“I’ve been dreaming about this for a long time,” Rose said. “Skateboarding was not even allowed in town when I was growing up. There were signs up saying no skateboarding. I got into skateboarding later in life and found a deep passion for it. It’s helped me in ways I don’t even fully understand yet.
“It’s helped me become a more adaptive and risk-taking adult and it’s something that I am excited to leave as a legacy for future children growing up and visiting Yachats – to get to have a place to play and be creative and express themselves through movement.”
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
