Teens Mold Clay Into Ideas for Possible Skateboard Parks

They’ve been chased out of parking lots, off park benches and out of downtown.

But at long last, Ventura’s skateboarders may soon get a space of their own--three mini-parks complete with ramps to zoom off and curbs to grind--and they will be a central part of the design process.

Skateboarders sat down Thursday at City Hall with Santa Cruz-based architect Ken Wormhoudt to brainstorm about what they want in their long-awaited public parks.

No final sites have been chosen, but Public Works Director Ron Calkins told about a dozen skateboarders and their parents that the city has three strong candidates: West Park, off West Park Row Avenue on the city’s west side; Blanche Reynolds Park, south of Main Street near the Buenaventura Mall in midtown; and Hobert Park, at Petit Avenue and Telegraph Road in east Ventura. “Eventually, we’d like to get them in every neighborhood that can accommodate them,” Calkins said. “This is kind of an experiment.”

Wormhoudt is a skateboard park architect--and his smooth cement monuments dot cities through the Bay Area, from Santa Rosa to Palo Alto to Pleasanton.

“He’s the most renowned skateboard park designer in all of California,” said Greg Gilmer, acting parks manager, who is in charge of the project.

Project engineer Rob DuBoux and his staff scattered hundreds of fliers around town before the meeting--at skateboard shops, Skatestreet, a privately owned indoor skateboard park in east Ventura, and even Taco Bell.

“We can’t put in 15-foot ramps like Skatestreet,” DuBoux said. “But we want to have some elements to make it challenging--so they [the skateboarders] won’t continue to get kicked out everywhere.”

The City Council voted earlier this year to spend $100,000 to develop three small skateboard parks. Each park will be about 2,000 square feet--about the size of the decorative cement plaza at the corner of Santa Clara and California streets, where skaters used to catch air before a downtown skateboard ban was passed last year. The parks will have several elements--but for liability reasons none of the curbs, fun boxes or ramps will be higher than 30 inches.

The meeting began with slides of various parks--street style and bowl style--that Wormhoudt designed. Then Wormhoudt gave the skateboarders blobs of red clay to model their ideal elements.

Ricky Alvarez and Mason Markworth-Polleck, both 14, and Sean McNairy, 13, sat at a table at City Hall hammering, pounding and shaping their creations. They made pyramids with steps, rails and ramps.

“They’re so small, we’ll probably get sick of ‘em after a while,” Mason said. “But this is still kind of fun.”

Wormhoudt planned to pile the clay mini-models into the back of his car and take them to his Santa Cruz design studio to integrate into a final design. He will present his design at a second community skateboard meeting in six weeks.

“I just hope they don’t throw the clay around City Hall,” DuBoux joked before the meeting.

Roger Thompson, co-owner of the recently opened Skatestreet, was unable to attend the meeting but expressed support for the public facilities.

“I’d like to see them go through with it,” he said Thursday afternoon. “It would be really good for us. We support anything that helps the skateboarders in the community and makes it more accessible.”