An expansion of the parking lot at the St. Croix Recreation Center in Stillwater this summer means the city’s skateboard park has to find a new home.
Plans call for a new skateboard park to be constructed at the southwest corner of Second and Nelson streets, just across the street from Teddy Bear Park, said Shawn Sanders, the city’s director of public works.
The site, at the south edge of the city-owned parking lot, currently has an old raised concrete foundation that is about 80 feet in diameter, he said.
“We think it was left over from the days of NSP or something way back a long, long time ago,” he said.
That concrete surface, which is about 4 or 5 feet higher than the actual parking lot, will be smoothed down to create a smaller skate park that will feature “more modernized skateboard park features,” he said. “It’s not your really big skate, typical skateboard park. It’s kind of a mini-skate park.”
The city has contracted with Spohn Ranch Skateparks, which is based in Los Angeles, to design the new $140,000 park.
Parking expansion
City officials are spending $1 million on the parking lot expansion at the recreation center – on the site of the current skateboard park. Construction is slated to begin in June, Sanders said.
The expansion will add 200 new parking stalls, significantly improving access and reducing congestion during peak hours, Sanders said.
Two schools – Stillwater Area High School and Mahtomedi High School – use the recreation center for their home hockey games, Sanders said. “During the hockey season, when there are two high-school hockey games happening at the same time, the lot is full and people are parking in other businesses.”
A new stormwater-treatment pond, designed to capture and treat runoff water before it reaches nearby water sources, is being constructed as part of the project, he said. “That’s going to help us manage the increased water flow resulting from the expanded parking lot and ensure that the surrounding environment remains protected,” he said.
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