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Sammaish is a relatively new community that is one of those strip mall suburbs east of Seattle. Until recently their City Hall was actually in a strip mall. The population is booming and there is a lot of Microsoft and related money in the town. I’ve got relatives living there so I visit a couple of times a year. When I heard they were thinking about building a skate park I really didn’t expect much. These little burbs usually don’t get it right, and there is often a combination of busy bodies, power struggles, nepotism, and sheer ignorance of the sport that conspires against the better interests of the local skating population. I figured they’d be bamboozled into going prefab. I even briefly considered getting involved in the process to make sure they didn’t screw it up. Then I remembered I lived in Portland, not Seattle. To my surprise, I heard they decided to go with concrete. I still didn’t get my hopes up, considering the quality of crete at nearby Redmond. What if they followed the example of near-ish Carnation, on the other hand… now that I could enjoy. Last summer I was in town the concrete suppliers strike was holding up the beginning of construction. Right before Halloween I made it back and checked it out.
So this park looks like fun. Street oriented for sure. On the plus side there are a ton of little banks and ledges and obstacles all over the place. You can tell the designers really tried to cram in as much terrain as possible. On the down side, you can tell the designers tried to cram in as much terrain as possible. It’s as if they took a video game approach to the layout. On paper it might look amazing but in real life a lot of the hits will be hard to get a line to, and the flow is often questionable. Some areas are situated in ways that make a clean approach or landing very difficult. It doesn’t really show in the pictures though. It’s clear that this was not designed or built by anyone whose expertise is in skate parks, especially when you get to the bowled area. At the same time, it seems like they really did their homework and made an attempt to make it fun. Ultimately, I think it will be successful. It’s certainly not done with a boring cookie cutter technique that some professional skate park builders incorporate. Thank god they didn’t go with prefab.
I sat on these pictures for almost a month. It should be finished by now. In fact others have taken pictures that make it seem so. They may be waiting for an official ceremony. It’s located at City Hall, with the police as well, so barge at your own risk. Actually, they didn’t even have it fenced off during construction. Maddeningly, the city’s web site has no details on the opening or hours of operation at this time. The project is called Sammamish Commons. I can’t find a floor plan or any other skate park pictures other than this one. They had a web cam up but now that City Hall is done they took it down for some reason.
UPDATE: The park is open 24/7! Check this comment from Sammaish Assistant City Manager Pete Butkus.
Sammamish Washington Construction Pictures: Posted 11-23-06: By Kilwag
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