The plot thickens. Jacksonville’s skatepark, although designed by Pillar Designs, will use Spohn Ranch prefab concrete, as seen in the images above. Why would you want to do that? Price is my guess. It’s probably cheaper than hiring a crew of experts to work on site. You make these things in a factory using unskilled labor for the most part, and haul them out on site, play a little connect the dots and seal up the joints. Probably takes less time too. Is it worth it? If you look at the limited designs available on the site, you’ll notice that like wooden prefab parks, all you get is one transition and one height with the exception of an extension here and there. So basically, one corner or pocket is going to be the same as every other one in that park or any other park made by Spohn. A definite improvement over prefab wood, but no substitute or draw like something made by a craftsmen. Pure utilitarianism. I suppose if budget were the main concern it would be better than nothing. Also, prefab concrete is probably the cheapest and easiest way for a city to make a small one hitter skate spot. I suppose that’s an acceptable use, although sometimes you can still get a reasonably priced tiny skatespot built by concrete artists.
Has anyone skated one of these prefab concrete skateparks? Of course people have, but I’m talking about our readers. Taking a look at Spohn Ranch, I have a feeling I may may have without knowing it. Of course you can’t really look at much of what they have to offer without filling out a request form, as if their park designs layout are somehow valuable. I think you can get that experience for free by playing a demo of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
16 comments
Justin J. McCarthy
I would like to add the the Jacksonville Beach skatepark never was built. Spohn played a negative role due to the fact the company received no local skater support. Action Sports Alliance runs two Florida skate parks that I can think of. Sarasota and Orlando which both require you to pay high fees. Additionally the hours at Orlando are greatly restricted. Now what is public about that?
Hays
A few quick points:
Type “Dunlap Skatepark Flickr” into google and the 1st result is a photo gallery of a SpohnCrete park built by Spohn Ranch. The park is a nice street plaza with real granite ledges & a brick-textured Barcelona wall. Designers from Artifex worked with local skaters to create a conceptual design and Spohn Ranch built it on budget and on time.
Type “Ajo Skatepark Flickr” into google and the 1st result is a photo gallery of a SpohnCrete park built by Spohn Ranch. Without SpohnCrete, it would have been a fabricated ramp park.
2a. Type “SpohnCrete video” into google and click on the YouTube links. They take you to videos of Spohn Ranch built parks in Oakdale, MN and Lemont, IL.
An upcoming park in Wyoming features a kidney bowl with a waterfall.
The previous comment, by “Croman”, was posted by a disgruntled fabricated ramp builder. He’s the only person I know who uses the word “playgoon”.
The Action Park Alliance operates all types of skateparks with all types of policies. They have pro shops & provide programming for two incredible parks in Glendale, AZ (Foothills & WARP X-Court) that are totally free and unsupervised. Most of the parks they operate would have been closed due to liability and budget concerns if the APA didn’t step in.
About the Jacksonville Beach project that got this rolling — Spohn Ranch walked away from the project because they didn’t feel that SpohnCrete was the best solution. I believe that Team Pain will do that job and build an incredible park.
Yes, that “perfect clover pool” in the Oschatz photo did come on a truck. There’s a sweet pool being put in Texas right now that came on a truck.
Anyone who has questions might want to contact Skaters for Public Skateparks. They’ve been looking into the SpohnCrete system due to its advantages in certain installations & its ability to use concrete in jobs where a fabricated ramp has been spec’d.
Croman
THE AMBASSADER TO SKATEBOARDING-Do you guys wanna know about that posuer? Mr Spohn claims to be a skater, but no one has ever skateboarded with him, there are no photos of him ever skateboarding. The truth is that he was once a rollerblader and thats it. He calims to be the “ambassador to skateboarding”, you all hve been taken for fools!If you believe any of it.any of it. He was the guy who actually licensed his name to the playgoons and started a war, by bringing in a bunch of fucking playgoon sales reps with nice little shirts to sell crap. Now he is selling for Barkman concrete (from Canada)and those 5 or so concrete prefab parks on his website are all built by Barkman concrete- how much of a sucker can you be????? Do you really believe that perfect clover pool is coming on the back of a truck??? Wake the fuck up-Destroy this playgoon posuer now!!
Justin J. McCarthy
I would like to comment on the Jax Beach proposed skatepark and the involvement of Pillar Design and Spohn Ranch. My name is Justin J. McCarthy and I live one mile north of Jax Beach in Atlantic Beach. We were lucky enough in Atlantic Beach to avoid the fate of a non-skater built skatepark very narrowly. Local government finally listened to long time locals and Grindline was brought in to build a fine skatepark that I session on a near daily basis. I am very thankful.
I have been fortunate enough to skateboard parks from the Northwest, the Rocky Mountain West and now in Florida. I seen and skated a decent spectrum of parks and have been involved in the lobbying of several to be built. Most of this experience has been in Colorado, where most local governments throughout the West have continued to listen to the needs of the skater community and hire contractors that reflect their desires. The contractors have been companies such Grindline, Dreamland and Team Pain to name a few who have provided high quality challenging parks to ride that I have enjoyed for many years. These parks have been overwhelmingly free and open to the public. Parks with fences, fees, hours and attendants are the rare exception and not the norm. As a result skateboarding is enjoyed by many and locals are left to police their own parks relatively undisturbed.
Upon learning that a skatepark was being built in Jax Beach last August, I contacted the City. I spoke to Gray Meadors (City employee in charge of the project) several times about contractors and what input the City had in their decision making process. The City contracted their bid without one skateboarder on the committee and zero input from the skater community. Furthermore, when I articulated my concerns of having a new inexperienced pre-fab concrete skatepark company building the local park I was told I was closed minded and inexperienced form a man who does not skateboarded. Mr. Meadors in an unprofessional and demeaning manner told me that my 23 years of skating and coaching skate camps counted for nothing. In addition, I had skated several Site Design (Brad Siedlecki
bailgun
weird, fucked up, and hard to skate, but fun.
bailgun
that joint is gonna be fucked, thats for sure.
but square coping is fun.
Kilwag
About 2/3 of the way down there’s a shot of what looks like a guy cutting off the pool coping. WTF?
The street stuff looks pretty cool, the big bank to wall, etc..
Aieee!!! go down to the very bottom. Are thy really going to do such a crappy job of making the hand poured flat match up with the prefab tranny? That joint won’t make to the end of the summer!
mc
SkateDaily points at some construction pictures of a prefab park being assembled in Paris.
orezona
I’m not reading all the posts in order, obviously…
So Pillar has nothing to do with the city Jacksonville’s choice of contractor. They are probably upholding their end of the deal by designing a skatepark, but since they aren’t the actual contractor who is building it there’s really nothing they can do (otherwise advise against a poor choice).
The idea of prefab concrete stinks. I see giant cracks in the places where two things are linked… But if you have stairs and ledges, does it make that much of a difference? Obviously you don’t want this crap in a bowl, but I can see it working for plaza-esque skatepark designs. Maybe…
Lmobb
dogshit
carvin marvin
probly rides slow and the design is bad e.g. open half bowl to nowhere
asking non skaters to design/build parks is like asking a vegetarian to make you a burger
Marek
if you look on their website and click on sphoncrete you will see a photo of almost good skatepark. funny thing is that that park wasnt built by them. its in germany and i skated it last year. there are actually some photos of it on this website. that is just ridiculous – more like a Phony ranch to me…
Rich
I wonder if the golfers in Jacksonville City government would enjoy prefab golf courses. Something tells me they wouldn’t stand for it. Skaters of Jacksonville, work to educate your local government and get some skater design/build ‘crete in your city.
chompy
How do they stop the separate pieces from shifting apart through the years? Are there any parks out there actually built this way that are more than a couple years old? Can’t say I’ve skated any prefab parks that weren’t complete Sh!t within a year…
Prickly Pete
If you limit your budget to whatever would buy this crap you’re just not trying. Sure, we usually need public funds to help build skateparks, but should not rely just on the local government. Get off your asses, Jacksonvillains and San Marcosans!
JF
doesn’t look so bad if it’s your only option budget wise. I’d rather skate the prefab-concrete than not having anything to skate I guess.
Looks better than all the other prefab option I’ve seen before.