Newark Blvd: They Like Noise!

You might have already heard, we’re trying to get a skatepark in Newark, and we need your support and feedback. The two most common questions we get are:

1. Where will you get the money? Thank you for asking. We have a funding strategy, and it doesn’t involve borrowing money. Stay tuned ($ deserves its own article).
   
2. Where will you put it? That‘s up to you. Let City Council know your thoughts. Here’s what we think.

The corner of Civic Center Park on Thornton/Cedar Blvd is nice, right? It’s central, and gives teens easy access to the library. Nice synergy. However, there are too many unknowns given the potential “NEW Civic Center” project. As currently sketched, the civic center layout doesn’t offer enough room on the corner for a skatepark. There’s gorgeous open space in the back of the park, but the skatepark could very well be isolated and have low foot traffic if the library moves elsewhere. A civic center is a much larger project than a small, concrete skatepark. A delay in the skatepark project (or any park project) could mean a loss of Measure WW funds.

So, we also analyzed Silliman Center and Community Center Park. All sites meet the space requirements. A skatepark consists of a skate structure and the surrounding amenities. The skatepark should ideally be 26,000 sf. To put that into perspective, it’s the size of the four tennis courts at the Community Center Park. The actual skate structure needs to be 17,625 sf, based on the Skatepark Adoption Model formula (city population X .414 = total square feet required). Get all that? Don’t worry, I had to read it multiple times.

So where does that leave us? The next best site appears to be Community Center Park on the Newark Blvd side, next to the tennis courts and as close to the street as possible.

Pros:

• Noisy. Skaters like street noise because it makes them feel like they’re doing tricks (”shredding”) in the street, giving the skatepark a nice vibe.
• Easy access to cheap eats. They’re burning 600 calories, and so they need to refuel.
  
• Standalone/after-hours bathroom. I don’t think I need to explain this one.
  
• High foot traffic. The more visitors, the more successful a skatepark will be.
  
• Strong park maintenance. Teens can be litterbugs. More solutions to be discussed in depth in a future article.
  
• High shade. It gets hot in the summer.
  
• Nearby drinking fountain. We want them to get exercise, but we don’t want them to overheat.
• Available parking. Some parents drive their kids, and enjoy watching them. One amenity on our wish list is a bleacher or some sorta seating for both skaters and spectators.
• Reasonably central. Not as central as Civic Center Park, but it’s more central than Silliman Center.
• Close to Junior High. Young teens don’t drive. We really want to encourage this group to skate from home or school. Have you seen the results of our teens’ CA Physical Fitness Tests?
• Curb appeal. Yes, skaters like to show off for you and one another. Also makes the city look alive.
  
• High visibility. We’re watching you—don’t even think about graffiting our skatepark!

So, What about the cons? Skateparks require picnic tables and trees. Because these site amenities already exit at this location, the cost of the project is kept to a minimum. There are two cons: (1) loss of a few trees in the center of the space, though the perimeter tree will remain untouched. (2) reduction in large-scale picnicking, though only two picnic tables will need to be relocated. The open space near the street is often used for bouncy houses, and sometimes very large gatherings; afterall, it has a large area with nearby parking, making it easier to haul banquet chairs and tables.

The solution is to use the unused open space on the eastside of the park, the space we use during Newark Days. There’s an equal amount of unused open space on the eastside of the park and lots of unused parking. Basically, we need to reshuffle the large-scale banquets/picnicking. (We’d need to add picnic tables to that area, however, though one can easily argue we should do that whether we have a skatepark or not.) This reshuffling could actually be seen as a benefit given that the eastside of the park is tranquil compared to Newark Blvd.

Community Center Park is a wonderful park, especially for young kids. There are playgrounds for infants and toddlers and a bike/scooter path for slightly older kids. Let’s face it, it’s a great place to party! However, it’s not meeting the needs of an important segment of our population—teenagers! There’s no individual activity for teenagers! (There are basketball courts, but I’ve only seen adults and toddlers use them.)

A skatepark completes the Community Center Park, and provides us more activities for our parties. So, in this site scenario, if you’re a parent or grandparent that’s trying to manage the activity schedule for kids of different ages, your job just got a lot easier.

If you like this idea, let Newark City Council know. If we’ve overlooked any of the pros/cons, or you have a better site in mind, let us know! You can sit down with some of our member skaters and our site volunteer over coffee. We can even tour the different sites together.

Newark City Council: city.council@newark.org
Mayor Alan Nagy: (510) 578-4914
Michael Hannon: (510) 578-4942
Luis Frietas: (510) 578-4915
Mike Bucci: (510) 578-4917
Maria Collazo: (510) 578-4913

Angela Akridge, Executive Director

Newark Parks Foundation
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Website: www.newarkparks.org
Email: info@newarkparks.org