The 20-year-old skate park downtown Cortez will be resurfaced by the end of summer, at the latest.
The project has been a few years in the making, and something that those who use it have long wanted to see.
The only reason it hasn’t been fixed sooner is because contractors in recent years have either not had the capacity or expertise to repave the park, said City Director of Parks and Recreation Creighton Wright.
But this year, they’re set to complete the project.
“We’ll put out request for bids in next few weeks,” said Wright.
Resurfacing will target and fix the park’s many cracks and uneven surfaces, It’ll also fix a slope of grass and mud that funnels debris into the bowl, said Wright.
The completion timeline really depends on the contractor; the work could be done as early as late spring. At the latest, it’ll be done by the end of summer.
Wright said there’s never been any significant work on the skate park to preserve or renovate it in the two decades it’s been around, and a series of community members who frequent the park voiced safety concerns stemming from its lack of maintenance at the Cortez City Council meeting on Tuesday evening, March 25.
“I’ve heard from a lot of young people in the community voice feelings of unsafety at the outdoor skate park,” said Abbie Herring, a local educator that volunteers at the Beech Street Skate Park, which is indoors at in the warehouse space at Good Sam’s.
Those feelings of unsafety come from its physical state of disrepair, in addition to a lack of lighting.
Wright said that just last year, the city put in two additional lights at the park.
“We don’t have a mechanism to add any more lights,” Wright said. “Based on electric capacity, we can’t add much more.”
In an effort to address some of these safety concerns, though, Wright said they’re looking to install cameras at the park.
Plus, by early to midsummer, he plans to have hired a park ranger to resolve low-level problems at the parks. The ranger will also have a positive presence at the skate park “to discourage the negative element from coming around,” said Wright.
At the City Council meeting, Herring underscored the importance of the park, as “there are so few spaces left for youth to just exist.”
“Almost everywhere youth hang out costs money, or you have to be involved in a program” said Herring.
The skate park “is one of the last spaces in town” where kids can play and connect for free, a sentiment that Neco Escoe, who grew up using the skate park in Cortez and now runs a skating program through the School Community Youth Collaborative, echoed.
“We as a community have an obligation to make it a safer space,” said Escoe.
A mother and local educator who volunteers at the indoor skate park wrapped up public comment, and highlighted the place of connection that a skate park is.
“Come witness youth play and connect,” she said, inviting council and those present to the Beech Street Skate Park. “It’s just a really special thing, and it transcends barriers.”
“It brings a bit of hope to me each week,” she went on. “If we can make wider circles of that, not just at our skate park but in our streets, I think that’s a reputation we’d all like” to have in our city.
In addition to the repaving work and safety measures at the skate park, Wright said the city plans to bring back a skate program it had once a week in collaboration with the School Community Youth Collaborative at the outdoor skate park.
“Maybe we’ll even expand it,” said Wright.
The story was corrected on April 3 at 9:24 a.m. to reflect the targeted resurfacing of problem areas in the skate park; it is not a complete re-pavement project.
