It’s a Boston morning here on SnA. The St Charles River skatepark that was designed by Wormhoudt, Inc. will be built by Grindline. That’s an interesting combination to say the least. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. This separate design and build contractor has me stymied though. I realize it’s due to state laws, but just think of the extra concrete you could afford by hiring the same firm to design and build. It’s $40,000 square feet, and no, those funnels aren’t some sort of ill conceived public arts expenditure. They are the support pillars for the highway overhead. Here in Portland we have some expensive river front property under Interstate 5 that would be well suited for a massive skatepark. Right now it seems to only be used for hosting the Cirque Du Soleil once a year. Yeah, this is old news from December.
– Thanks to Tom Miller for the tip.
5 comments
Kilwag
Hard to tell from the rendering, but it looks like a hell of a lot of flat bottom on one end of the elbow pipe. It also looks like their might be a hump there, or is it shadows, but in either case it seems like it could be a potential problem area.
Reese
Although it wasn’t the same sort of partnership (they came in for damage control), GL did help Wormhoudt out of the tight spot they got into with the Richland skatepark debacle.The design looks like it has some decent elements but the trough on the outside of the pipe elbow looks marginal.
Mac
I was talking with Micah from Grindline about the Charles River park at the THPRD meeting. He said that they have been given latitude to redesign elements, so it won’t be exactly as pictured, and he felt very good about their part of the deal. They’ll be “finishing” the design and then building, so it sounds like a great “partnership” for the Boston skaters.
duders
Im sure they will redesign the whole thing, either officially or how they usually do it, on the fly. Either way they will surely fix most of the problems with Wormhoudt parks in the initial design or the non skating contractor who builds the stuff
jf
I heard somewhere that grindline was gonna redesign the whole thing….but maybe I’m wrong. This thing better be ready when I move there in September…it’s my only hope for survival! Looks sweet tho.