As part of Portland’s 19 skatepark master plan, the Steel Bridge site was chosen for the main Regional Facility, or essentially, the destination park. The official Parks & Rec definition:
Regional Skatepark: A regional facility will be a single large facility (>40,000 square feet) that will accommodate many users at once. It could be lighted and possibly serve as a venue for competitions. This type of facility will not be located in residential areas.
Steel Bridge is supposed to be our Louisville, in terms of square footage and drawing power. Our landmark skatepark, not that anything could replace Burnside in the skateboarding public’s eyes. The City of Portland has started accepting proposals – the RFP is posted. You need to be a registered vendor to view the related documents. The list of registered vendors (as far as skatepark building companies is concerned) appears to only contain Dreamland, New Line and surprisingly, Wally Hollyday Design. (UPDATE: Found another – Artifex.) The rest of you need to get your paperwork in order because the bid closes on january 9th of 2009. Also confusing, there’s an item marked Estimate:$50,000.00, which isn’t going to buy much. Perhaps Mr. Miller will enlighten us. Flame on!
– Thanks to Matt Redhead for the tip. [Bridge Photo: Wikipedia]
P.S. Where is the money going to come from?
74 comments
Bilbo Baggins
Looks like a couple architect groups and Grindline got it
Will Jones
wally holliday built the park in my town (edmond oklahoma) and its sorta good, they did a pretty good job, the street area is really good, everyone likes it, it flows really good, the bowl is sort of good, but it has no vert and is only sort of gnarly with an 8 foot deep end, but like i said it has no vert and after 3 years of skating it, its gotten kinda boring
ive also been to the wichita kansas park built by Wally, it has 3 bowls but they are pretty much just cookie cutters, one of which is a “pool” with tile and vert but steel copping (??) which makes no sense, the street area was pretty lame as well, buuut it did have this cool bank thing, i dunno, hard to explain, it was the one thing at the park that i liked
soooo there you go, if you want ok parks with one cool thing that you will be bored with in 3 years, theeeeeeeen Wally holliday is for you!
ByTheWay
“Fuck Wally Holliday” I did. He just layed there. And on the 8th day he built Apple.
“Portland it is just some old hippie town that can
Lmobb
grown ass man,pops. grown enough to handle enough concrete to fill your trailor.
DaddyYo
Kid.
DaddyYo
Ha, ha. I know. They would rather hear you opinion about what other people think about my opinion.
Lmobb
they just don’t care to hear your crappy opinion, gramps.
DaddyYo
So you don’t have anything else to say about the skatepark?
Figures.
your not like the other folks, here at the trailer park
…really? tennessee? intellegent?! readers?!!
…psst? whosgotmeth? you? is that what you’re saying?
Kilwag
Haw, haw. Or should I say Hee Haw? Come on, we’ve got intelligent readers in Tennessee, and let’s face it, We’re the skatepark capital of world, but we’re probably not far from being the Meth capital of the world either.
your not like the other folks,here at the trailer park
psst. you gotta real purty mouth…
nweyesk8
YEEEHAAAWWW!!!!! we dun reched the top tin komemints, thank ya tenesee daddiyo…
KC
Is this what they call Cyber Bullying? haha!
Mac
This is quickly going south. Literally. I mean, the insults could at least be funny, right? Stop bringing us down, boys. Lighten’ up, already. Oh…shit… that’s some authentic NW hippie-talk coming outta my keyboard right there. Peace.
bobcat
seriously, go kill yourself you have to be the most retarded people to call themselves a ‘skater’ in the history of skatekind.
And for what it’s worth I was born in Portland so go back to fuckin your sister, redneck.
radam
DaddyYo rules. It’s nice to have someone to point to that is an absolute horse’s ass. And, it is nice that he lays it all out there for us to see so obviously. From reading his posts, I realize that his brain functions are so below the average intelligence level, that it make me believe that the rest of society just might be okay.
bailgun
oh, good, daddyyo is here. thank god we can get mired down in his bullshit instead of the topic at hand.
oh, and could somebody post some links to the countless times the dudes on skatetn made mr poindexter look as stupid s he is?
i could use a laugh.
conahan
Yeah, man we’re annoying globally here.
nweyesk8
DaddyYo, what part of ‘Skate and Annoy’ don’t you understand?
DaddyYo
“bobcat Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 11:38 am
hows the flowboard riding, daddydouchbag?”
I don’t ride a flowboard, ya dumbass.
What are you doing on this forum Jason Harrison. You don’t live in Oregon.
nweyesk8
Bobcat is no nobody? I am so disillusioned right now….
Concretin Nik
Mikey? Was I talking to you? No. Why on earth would I ever talk to a fkn dirtbag like you? I was in fact, talking to everyone except you. I’ll explain it for the idiot reader(whomever that may be): It’s an observation about fkn trolls being scared to say shit in person. As Mikey was so gracious to prove. Anyway… sorry Northwest Skaters, for the Tennessee troll derail… can’t wait to join you for some sessions on your kickass ‘crete.
DaddyYo
Hass – yes, I am familiar with the RFP process. However, what I am talking about is quite a bit different.
Maybe it is too late now.
bobcat – shut the hell up. Why you gotta bring your harassment to this discussion. You ain’t nobody and you’ve got nothing to say.
bobcat
hows the flowboard riding, daddydouchbag?
hass
Daddyo, the whole point of this post was to tell the community that the city has started accepting proposals for the park’s site. Only 3-4 companies had filled out the proper paperwork to submit their proposal.
This is the public bidding process or “competition” phase that you are trying to advocate. Its the same process that went into the 5 other parks built under the 19 park plan.
DaddyYo
What Tom Miller said, “I hope that helps, and I would close by saying any and all thoughts on what would make for the most amazing skatepark experience are encouraged.”
Neil, let’s here what you have to say. Don’t mind what Tranny says.
DaddyYo
“Trolls don
conahan
There are many things to love about Portland. You should definitely visit some time. Then after you have spent all your money, go on back home.
I’m having trouble moving past the seventies ad campaigns.
bobcat
dude daddyo is the spokesjerk for skaters for public skateparks!
Kilwag
WINNER: DaddyYo!!! –
Says: “Portland it is just some old hippie town that can
Concretin Nik
Trolls don’t go to parks without police presence… ’cause sayin’ shit in person is dangerous… Don’t feed the troll.
b
daddyyo, you are obviously out of touch with modern skatepark design to say that wally “would be at the top of any list.” top 10? ok, i’ll give you that. top of the list? no way. while his parks are better than prefab, they leave alot to be desired, and are cookie-cutter designs with the cookies set up with slight variation from park to park.
and since you have stated you would not go to portland, then stay the fuck out of discussions about portland’s flagship park.
dave
I know a lot about places I have never been to as well!
Remember its not who you know…
DaddyYo
I would not go to Portland but I do know alot about it.
Me sounding tough? Did you not read the post by the prick I quoted?
I’d like to see what are the top concrete park in the country in any objective poll. Wally Holleyday parks would be on the top of any list.
nweyesk8
DaddyYo, you have obviously never been to Portland and you are funny for trying to ‘sound’ tough in an online post. Even more funny is the fact you are on one hand bitching about ‘dog town’ skate parks, whatever the fuck that means, and at the same time your trying to hype Wally ‘Dogtown’ Hollyday to build our park. If it wasn’t for burnside we wouldn’t be enjoying such a surge in good to decent public parks, they would all be pre-fab shit piles, if they existed at all.
DaddyYo
“Carl Says:
November 14th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Get the fuck out, Michael Poindexter. Keep your little pink dick in Tennessee and leave us the fuck alone. You may have noticed that we don
Tranny Hall of Fame
“For the record, Jesse Bracewell had full design authority over the street section at Pier.” -Tom
Jesse who? Will Jesse be tied into the Steelbridge contract?
Neil: “Pay attention when your at the parks and watch what most of the kids are skating.”
Jesus, Neil. Beat it, you old goat, and move to Kansas. Hell to pay if Steelbridge is built for the kids. Its our responsibility to use the experience and knowledge gained from years of skateboarding and years of skatepark work to build a park far better than what the kids want. Forget the kids, the kids will ride anything (just as we did). They got no bones in it. Steel Bridge is ours! Make it Burnside II.
tito
wow
Chad Balcom
We can throw out builders all damn day, but there isn’t any money to build anything, so that crap don’t matter.
Seriously.
No money. It doesn’t matter what you want to ride, what we did wrong at this other park, what we did right at some park in Tennessee, etc.
Did I mention we don’t have any money? If you want to contribute to the outcome of this project: figure out a way to help raise the cash.
Pretty simple.
skatepark.org
skateportland.org
Kilwag
There you go. Make the Steel Bridge park a massive street plaza and give the other 15 left to Dreamland/Grindline/Airspeed/Placed to Ride
Tom Miller
Not to digress off the Steel Bridge topic too much, but opinionated folks may want to know…
For the record, Jesse Bracewell had full design authority over the street section at Pier. I know because I wrote it into Dreamland’s contract. Jesse is well-known in Portland’s street skating circles, as well as (at the time) a vocal critic of Dreamland’s street work. We gave him (on behalf of Portland’s street skaters) more authority than any project Parks has led to date.
We were also constrained by Parks’ insistence that we stay within the original footprint (basically a square). Obviously contemporary street designs tend to be more linear in design, consistently with the linear nature of street skating (run up, trick, bail/roll out). We pushed Parks to embrace a panhandle design at Glenhaven, which has proven to be much more effective. Ed Benedict embodies that; its teardrop shape is long and thin.
I hope we add to Pier to better accommodate street in the years to come. There are some obvious and relatively inexpensive opportunities.
If you’re familiar with the Steel Bridge site, you can imagine a plaza concept stretching the length of the site parallel to Naito Parkway.
b
i think ‘drastically’ might be an overstatement. i thought that there was a sps ‘street’ guy supposedly ‘consulting’ on the pier street area.
wasn’t this discussed a couple years ago?
george
Hass, I believe you’re right but the end result turned out drastically different from those plans.
hass
Hey george, if i recall, the street course at pier was not designed by Dreamland. I think the plan came from some local skaters.
Fitz
Ordinarily, I’d be all about DL and GL not building another tranny-specific place for all you old bastards to carve around… There’s enough of those already.
But this is Portland’s flagship, and Portland gets a flagship because of the efforts of Dreamland and Grindline. It would be wholly inappropriate for anyone else to build this park.
And given the space, it begs for something unique–something beyond street or tranny, something that fits.
I’m pretty much a low-tranny and street skater, and guess what? MY NEEDS DON’T MATTER.
This park should be beyond what we’ve ever seen. Make it huge, tight, smooth, rough, gnarly, flowy–whatever. Just make it different, and if it doesn’t meet your needs, go skate somewhere else. We’ve got a pretty good mix of street and tranny nowadays, and it’s only getting better.
Dreamland all the way!
colin walsh rules
i like metal ramps, roller blades, asians w/ cars and a bunch of spoiled oregon people that complain about over the 200 parks they have eat a dick pussies.
Concretin Nik
You guys are absolutely amazing. If all you want to do is talk shit about parks, then go for it, as long as you stay the fk out, so no one has to listen to your bitching during the session. More runs for skaters.
Oh yea, I for one certainly NEVER want to skate that kook built park Lake Cunningham, or Louisville… what the hell was that Worm freak thinking!? (sarcasm for those not paying attention) And one last thing, the Bowling Green park kicks ass! (definitely not sarcasm)
george
I think we have a good pool of quality designer/builders to choose from. Dreamland, Grindline, New Line, Team Pain, Air Speed would all build something rad. Let’s keep the kooks out (Wormhoudt) and let those 5 battle it out. Dreamland isn’t immune to design flaws. Look no further than that pile of shit street course at Pier.
It would be rad to see something completely unique on the West side of the river.
aaron
Fuck Wally Holliday, that shit is weak. His designs are alright, but his parks are on the low end of the good parks. I live close to the Greenlake park and it’s fun, but not top-of-the-line by a long shot. Let Dreamland build the bowl(s) part and have New Line build the plaza part.
Kilwag
Neil the hater is back!
Old man this.. boll troll that…
Build for the future.. Hilarious, considering the town you speak of is part of the reason skateparks have a future. Must be a drag to skate in the town world famous for bumming you out.