Skatepark to boast bowl

Skatepark to boast bowl. The ground breaking of the Eighth Street Skate Park took place on Thursday a project that has been fought for since 2007. Here Councillor Mark Grimes (second from right) along with from the left, Brian Hughes who has been pushing for the facility, David Nosella, City of Toronto, and Chicago Blackhawks player Dave Bolland. (September 2, 2010) Staff photo/ IAN KELSO

The bowl was in doubt earlier this year.

Skaters lobbied for it. But city-hired design consultants reported the bowl wouldn't fit in the project's $400,000 budget.

Since, Toronto council approved a motion by area councillor Mark Grimes to direct $110,000 in developers' community benefits money to the project. Recently, Grimes reported he also secured an $84,000 donation of concrete from Toronto Redi-Mix to build the bowl.

"I really didn't want to go without the bowl," Grimes said in a recent interview. "It will be great to finally get it to the kids. At the end of the day, it's a good news story although it has been such a rocky road."

In 2006, many in the south Etobicoke community expressed outrage and cited ecological, historical and recreational issues with city plans to locate the skateboard park in naturalized, lakefront Colonel Samuel Smith Park.

Those plans abandoned, a community working group of 12, including skaters, residents and business owners, chose the Eighth Street Parkette as the new site for the skatepark.

On Thursday, Sept. 2, Grimes broke ground on the new skateboard park, joined by Mimico-native Dave Bolland of the Chicago Blackhawks, David Nosella, city supervisor of capital projects and local skater Brian Hughes.

Bolland is in town to bring the Stanley Cup to his hometown Mimico in a parade Friday, Sept. 3.

Nosella said the skatepark's concrete is expected to be poured by year's end.

Initially, it was expected the skatepark could have opened last month.

But earlier this year, tender on the project closed over budget, Nosella said. That necessitated a redesign and a second tender, he said.

The skatepark's proposed 10,000-sq.ft. skateable space is approximately half of the Birmingham Street parkette.

An existing playscape in the parkette has been relocated to greenspace at the adjacent co-ops.

The skatepark's street-plaza design reflects a pedestrian connection, as well as preservation of grass and many of the parkette's existing trees, both cited as priorities by some residents.

Skater Hughes wanted the bowl.

"I'm pretty pumped," said Hughes, who sat on both the design and site selection committees. "I think the bowl is going to be a key feature in the park. In the city, a lot of skateboard parks have street obstacles (but no bowls)."

Hughes likes the bowls at Turner Park in Hamilton, a unique clover-shaped bowl at a Campbellford skatepark, as well as the challenging 10-foot bowl at Vanderhoof Skatepark in the Laird Drive-Eglinton Avenue East area.

"I think Mark (Grimes) listened to us. I think the city listened to what the skaters want. We want to have a place to skate so we're not on the street," said Jay Mandarino, founder of CJ Skateboard Park and School, an indoor skatepark on Horner Avenue.

At 49, Mandarino claims to be one of the oldest skaters in the country. Yesterday, he said he has visited 250 skateparks around the world.

"A lot of girls are coming to the sport now," he said of skateboarding. "Everybody is always willing to teach someone a trick. You don't see that in any other sport. There are no egos. It's all about having a good time."

Karver Whitmell has skated in the neighbourhood for 27 years.

"It's about time," he said. "My band did a fundraiser for this in 2001. It's not the perfect spot for it. It should have been where the skating trail is going (in Colonel Samuel Smith Park). But it's better somewhere than nowhere."