Ryan Hass writes:

Here is the answer to prefab in New England.  Back in 2000-2003 these parks were springing up all over the place.  Asphalt footers, huge cracks and terrible seams are par for the course.  Not to mention these objects are usually dropped into place with little or no thought about layout.

Suh-weeeet!

As a followup to our earlier coverage of the Jacksonville Beach, Florida skatepark, here’s some more info on Spohn Ranch and their prefab concrete option. Aaron Spohn got his professional start building ramps for the X Games in 1992. According to their official correspondence, Spohn Ranch has some sort of ongoing partnership agreement with Pillar Design Studios as well as an organization called the Action Park Alliance whom they bill as “skatepark operations professionals.” (Uuuugh! That’s a topic for a different post altogether.) Spohn Ranch also builds metal, wood and alternative surface prefab ramps, but I’ve highlighted the concrete offerings. (Updated)

I been to the edge, and there I stood and looked down. You know I lost a lot of friends there baby, I got no time to mess around. So if you want it got to bleed for it baby.

John Aguilar sent in this Jeremy Brown photo of his buddy John Veitch grabbing a frontside edger in the bowl at Bellingham Washington. That’s an edger, not an air. I like to toss the old backside edger into a session on a regular basis, but fronstide edgers are courting disaster and not disasters. This is the largest size file he had, so I can’t show you a close up of the wheel on the coping. Love the edger.

High temperature today was 38° in Portland – pretty stiff east wind too. Even though the sun was shining it was miserable enough to prevent people from enjoying outdoor activities. Even with school out for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, at noon, most of Glenhaven Park’s 15.69 acres was deserted, no joggers, no kids on the playground, no soccer, tennis or baseball. All 22 users of the park could be found in the quarter-acre skatepark. We need more skateparks. Of course, all the other missing outdoor types might have been out doing positive things for the community. Photo from Antigrav remote

Some time in 2003 Steve Grover was skating by himself at the West Linn skatepark in the middle of the day. Steve Olson showed up out of the blue and took a few runs. Then he got out an old Polaroid camera and asked Steve Grover if he would snap a few shots. Grover said sure, but also suggested that he get to keep a couple. It was a win-win situation. Check out the Shot of the Week, plus a bonus alternate shot after the jump.

Sure, we had construction pictures of San Jose’s Lake Cunningham skatepark out the wazoo and then some, but nobody cares about that once the park is open. Especially when you have a photo session with Lance Mountain, Steve Cabellero, Salba, and Rick “Ask the Doctor” Blackhart. Head on over to Concrete Disciples for the always adept MRZ photos. The server has been hit or miss since for a while now, just try back later if it doesn’t load. – Thanks to JF for the tip.

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.

Ok first off, this is not the best illustration. There is a lot of stock photography with business guys shouting, but not so much of skater dudes shouting. Imagine the megaphone in the skater’s hand instead. Jacksonville Florida city officials held one of those “feedback” public skatepark meetings where they unveiled plans for the city’s new skatepark. The crowd of 50 or so skaters became angered when they realized the city was going to railroad through precast concrete obstacles from a company called Pillar Design Studios out of Tempe Arizona. Pillar looks like it is one of those landscape architecture firms dabbling in skateparks. They appear to have quite a few skateparks under their belts, just don’t look for any actual pictures of them on their web site. I’d find that disconcerting if I was a skateboarder living in a town that was about to hire that firm. They have a few links to external sites with sparing amount of pictures. I followed one at random and it showed a bunch of prefab Woodward metal ramps. Pillar also does motocross and bike only parks(?) as well as “Action Sports Facilities” with go cart tracks!

Thanks to Ryan Hass for these shots of the progress on the Lincoln City snake run.

Aumsville’s skatepark reopened the day I posted the story about it being closed, after being closed for about a month. I spoke with City administrator Maryann Hills this morning, who confirmed that the park had been reopened with the same rules as before, which means lights go out at midnight. Mrs Hill cited vandalism in the bathroom and an assault at the park as the specific reasons why the park was shut down. There is some sort of security camera present, although she was reluctant to give out the details. However, when I asked if it was internet enabled so skaters could use it to check rain conditions, she said it was not currently, but went on to described somewhat passive plans to add that in the future if someone would basically take care of it all for them. Checking up on Tasha’s information from a few days earlier, Mrs Hill mentioned that a precondition to reopening the park was information being given to the police for pressing charges against an individual or individuals. She assumed an arrest or some sort of cooperation had taken place since the park had re-opened. She also reiterated that the park will close again if there are further incidents. The phone call ended on a happy note when Mrs Hill very pleasantly told me to have fun skating. The photo of Danimal above is from the same 2004 night session that the picture of Damien was taken.