The Roc City Park Location and Design
The planned location (pending New York State Department of Transportation approval)
is beneath the east side of
the iconic and award winning Susan B. Anthony/Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge. This location provides excellent
shelter from often adverse elements of the region. There is plenty of room for the varied disciplines of skateboarding
and BMX. There is also room on either side of the bridge for a more outdoor feel.
Nothing less than a cast in place concrete skate park will suffice for this project. Below is the full text of an article from Warranty Week: The Newsletter for Warranty Management Professionals (February 24, 2004) describing in clear detail the benefits of cast in place concrete over modular skate parks. These benefits are both in enjoyment and total cost of ownership.
Skatepark Warranties:
Whether they're made of steel, plywood, plastic, or paper, the ramps and rails installed in skateboard parks are sold with a warranty. But whether the warranty lasts for a year or 20 years seems to have more to do with marketing than the strength of the materials used.
We believe a quantitative analysis of all material options measuring total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) favors concrete over modular skateparks. Further, too many skaters, vulnerable to surface inconsistencies due to hard wheels as small as 50mm, have experienced first-hand the unnecessary hazard caused by the seam between the base of modular ramps and the pad it sits upon, specifically eliminating prefabricated concrete park elements from the list of superior materials.
Finally, modular ramps (concrete pre-fab not included) , in the words of Portland, Oregon's Noise Control Officer: "are essentially speakers," broadcasting the sound of skateboarding great distances, relative to concrete, which emits sounds quantified as "comparable to a conversation between two adults" at just a few meters (Van Orden, et al. 2001).
There exist many different options for those seeking to provide a skateboard park. There are temporary structures, movable or "modular" ones, and permanent skateparks build from concrete. Skateparks today are made from wood, steel, fiberglass, composites, and concrete.
The spectrum of materials available fall into two categories:
-Permanent
-Modular
Permanent parks are typically constructed from concrete. Modular parks are constructed from wood, steel, fiberglass, and composites, depending on the vendor and quality of the materials. So which is better? "Better" can easily become a topic of subjectivity, regarding how one segment of skateboarder prefers one over another. Instead, we've chosen to focus on economic reality: return on investment, or "ROI."
"ROI," of course, is initial investment plus maintenance cost, over the life of the product. Although many modular vendors promote an apparently inexpensive acquisition cost, quantified in a metric identified as "price per square foot," we've found that these values are inaccurately derived, as many vendors divide the investment cost with the total area of the facility, ignoring that they weren't hired to provide the flat pad the facility is placed upon (a task typically assigned to the city). Once normalized, the "cost per square foot," and therefore, the "cost of acquisition" for modular typically far exceeds that of more traditional materials, such as concrete. Further, common "value added" features promoted by modular companies pertains to the very modularity of the equipment, as well as impressive-sounding warrantees. However, in a large and growing number of cases many vendors invalidate the equipment's warrantees as soon as they are relocated or dismiss usage-damage as vandalism. Many cities have complained of poor responsiveness from vendors while seeking remediation, causing unanticipated variability in operational maintenance costs, as personnel are required to make more frequent "safety inspection" trips to the parks. SPS recommends requiring any vendor to provide several references to cities who purchased their equipment 3 or more years ago, and evaluate them for their service, responsiveness, and the durability of the equipment. A growing archive of photos and video has demonstrated the frailty of modular materials when subjected to everyday usage.
One final caveat: ensure your concrete vendor has experience with skateparks, as they require engineering constraints often unknown to a general contractor. Our recommendation to seek referrals from prior (3+ years) customers applies equally to concrete.
Concrete and modular have very similar up-front costs
- Modular parks are about $15 per square foot
- Concrete parks are about $18 per square foot
Concrete has literally zero maintenance costs, and some have been around for 30 years
Here are some more pictures of the planned site:
South of the bridge is a small field with a hill.
Below: Another view South. The bridge provides excellent protection from the weather.
As a point of comparison, below are some photographs of skate parks to help you envision the potential for the RCP.
Burnside: Portland, Oregon
Skate Plaza: Kettering, Ohio
