Within the Spring of 2013, the staff behind the Riverside Arts Market (RAM) have been working with members of Metropolis Council to acquire funding to create further parking to serve the bustling weekly market. Plans have been already underway to boost personal funds and convert a portion of Riverside Park into the John Gorrie Canine Park. A bit of that canine park could be constructed beneath the Fuller Warren Bridge overlooking the deserted Public Faculty Quantity 4. Separating the canine park and the Riverside Arts Market, have been a sequence of rancid, algae-filled ponds the place filthy rainwater from the interstate freeway above would gather.
“Initially, we envisioned that RAM would finally broaden throughout the road. However the market wanted extra versatile parking services to serve our rising numbers of artists, creatives and small companies, so we needed to modify our unique imaginative and prescient and hunt down methods to serve the market but additionally hook up with the John Gorrie Canine Park,” recounted RAM Founder Wayne Wooden.
Former Government Director of Riverside Avondale Preservation (RAP) Carmen Godwin convened a staff of artists, city planners and neighborhood members to brainstorm concepts on what may very well be potential for that area. “After RAM started, we began interested by the retention ponds beneath the bridge and the way this was wasted area for our neighborhood. We knew we wished to create a strolling area beneath your complete run from the market to Riverside Park,” Carmen remembers. “The Metropolis of Jacksonville (COJ) didn’t need to foot the invoice for the canine park, so we created a donor plan and raised funds to construct out the canine park beneath the bridge. We created a public/personal partnership with COJ and the Florida Division of Transportation (FDOT). The grassroots success of each RAM and John Gorrie Canine Park was proof that we might create one thing nice, however we would have liked to do the heavy lifting and this meant we would have liked new concepts and new companions.” She continued, “After that first assembly in 2013, we got here to a consensus that we would have liked a 3rd of the area closest to Riverside Avenue to be a versatile area that may very well be used for each parking and a RAM extension. We additionally knew we would have liked a crosswalk put in and for the world to be properly landscaped and designed with lighting, water, and electrical. The opposite two-thirds of the area wanted to have artwork included into it in a roundabout way.”
Melody Bishop, the architect of each RAM and the Northbank Riverwalk extension although Brooklyn had beforehand proposed a sculptural backyard that might wrap across the retention ponds. Everybody was in settlement that the spirit of that sculptural backyard wanted to be saved, however there was quite a lot of area to fill and the retention ponds have been universally detested. There’s a phrase that ‘You possibly can solely put a lot lipstick on a pig.’ Nonetheless properly you dressed up the retention ponds, they have been nonetheless retention ponds. They might at all times be ugly irrespective of how a lot lipstick was utilized. That’s when the massive thought took form.
Only a few months prior, the second Go Skate Day in Hemming Plaza had been held. Hosted by a non-profit known as PB&J (Celebration, Profit & Jam) and Kona Skatepark, the plaza had been reworked right into a one-day skate park the place hundreds of individuals from all walks of life attended. A number of organizers of Go Skate Day have been in attendance, they usually have been all certain of 1 thing- {that a} world-class skate park would correctly fill the area and entice enormous and numerous crowds to this area day in and day trip. In a metropolis as massive as Jacksonville, there have been no skate parks on your complete Westside of the St Johns River.
A public-school instructor named James Smith had a Powerpoint presentation in hand and supporters flanking the seats surrounding him. The presentation was compelling. A correctly designed skate park wouldn’t solely be architecturally placing however might additionally function artwork installations and pedestrian-friendly paths for non-skaters. Not solely have been the pictures highly effective, however additionally they had two years’ value of real-world proof from Go Skate Day occasions that for those who construct it, they may come.
The staff reached out to legendary skate park designers Tim Payne and Tito Porrato to associate up with Melody to include these concepts collectively. James recollects, “They drove up from Orlando to stroll by means of the positioning with us. Their proximity to Jacksonville and status for constructing nice parks made them stable potential companions. We additionally wished to display to the Metropolis that we have been prepared and prepared to entry skate trade connections to make this mission a hit.”
Not solely did these conferences present the spark that finally led to a skate park, it additionally impressed a number of mates to staff up and go into enterprise with each other. “I knew of (skilled skateboarder) Mike Peterson by means of my time hanging round Kona and was tremendous excited when he began constructing his indoor skatepark on Talleyrand,” James explains. “When the 2nd One Spark was coming round, Mike and Pete McMahon reached out to see if we might all work collectively to advertise our tasks. All of us acquired alongside rather well and have become good mates by means of that. Shortly after One Spark, the constructing the place Mike was constructing an indoor skate park obtained a ton of code violations and he wasn’t going to have the ability to open. I knew he and Pete have been taking a look at different areas for an indoor park, however after that assembly the place I’d pitched the skate plaza, I inspired them to place park plans on maintain and simply open a skate store close to Riverside. They countered that they’d open a store if I agreed to associate with them. That was one of many best choices I made in my life.” The three banded collectively and opened the Block Skate Provide in December 2014. The Block was initially situated two blocks from what’s now the Artist Stroll Skate Park in Brooklyn. It later moved to Springfield in 2017.
However massive concepts which have a groundswell of neighborhood assist don’t at all times flip into actuality. From thought to opening, two completely different Governors, three completely different Mayoral administrations and three completely different teams of Metropolis Council all needed to be satisfied to not solely inexperienced gentle the mission, however to additionally present the mandatory sources that might carry an thought from pen and paper to shovels and concrete. James provides, “Anytime a mission has to bounce between a number of enormous bureaucracies, there’s going to be challenges, setbacks, and delays. This mission was no exception. Metropolis, state, and even nationwide companies all needed to negotiate, plan, finances, and execute for this skate park to come back to fruition. We lobbied laborious with the parks division in addition to with RAP. And we weren’t the one ones lobbying, there have been many unsung heroes alongside the way in which that wished to see this park get constructed and labored for years to make it occur.”
Whereas the gradual morass of presidency moved, the skate neighborhood continued to make inroads with the Metropolis’s Parks Division. Jacksonville has one of many largest park methods within the nation by way of acreage. Nonetheless, funding that enormous of a park system faces annual finances restraints. Organizations like Go Skate Jax stepped as much as increase cash from the neighborhood and open what are known as Do-It-Your self (DIY) skate parks in a few of Jacksonville’s uncared for neighborhoods. DIY skate parks usually use discarded refuse like concrete blocks, plywood, and so on to create a sequence of ramps, rails and obstacles and remodel unused areas into cheap and easy-to-maintain skate-ready parks. Two such DIY skate parks have been constructed within the Eastside’s Flossie Brunson Park and Downtown’s LaVilla Park on what had been damaged and unused tennis courts. The skating neighborhood not solely constructed these areas, however recurrently hosts cleanups and restore days to maintain the areas secure. The success of those endeavors proved {that a} bigger skate park beneath the Fuller Warren Bridge could be effectively cared for by the very neighborhood it will serve.
FDOT was hesitant to fill within the retention ponds and even enable for occasions or actions beneath the overpass area, regardless of RAM’s weekly operation lower than 100 toes away. Kay Ehas, now Government Director at Groundwork Jacksonville, Carmen and Melody met with FDOT over a year-long interval to assuage issues and supply the mandatory technical background to counter apprehensions from each FDOT and USDOT. Ultimately, FDOT gave sufficient of a inexperienced gentle that the thought of submitting within the ponds was potential. However then issues stalled. Carmen chimes in, “I left RAP on the finish of 2016. I assumed the thought was simply put to the wayside till I noticed it being constructed someday and thought, that was no simple activity, somebody took that concept on and made it a actuality.” A number of issues had modified. Daryl Joseph, the Metropolis’s Parks Director, had turn out to be a champion. Moreover, the Fuller Warren Bridge was being expanded to incorporate a Shared Use Path for pedestrians and bicyclist to cross the river. And on prime of all of this, the Metropolis was charging headfirst into the design and supreme development of the Emerald Path. The area beneath the bridge would offer a essential connection level for the Emerald Path, and the Parks Division had begun to understand the profitable DIY skatepark partnerships.
By 2019, Mayor Lenny Curry’s workplace was satisfied to maneuver sufficient cash round to place out a design providers bid to rent an organization to design and presumably construct a skatepark. CA Skateparks was chosen for the job and commenced working with the Metropolis’s Public Works division to undertake the mission. The engineering agency, GAI, that had been contracted to design the bridge growth, shared use path and storm water design would broaden their scope and obtain funding from FDOT to additionally present expanded engineering providers for the skate park.
In 2021, funding for the mission first appeared within the Metropolis of Jacksonville’s Capital Enchancment Plan, the 5 yr budgeting device used to plan, fund and construct infrastructure tasks all through town. The retention ponds have been lastly stuffed in after 8 years of behind-the-scenes politicking. Quickly after, FDOT allotted funds put aside for landscaping from the Fuller Warren Bridge growth mission and COJ accepted a roughly $5 million contribution of their very own to fund two phases of the Artist Stroll extension. By 2023, a newly-sworn in Mayor Donna Deegan and Metropolis Council members Ron Salem and Jimmy Peluso have been on web site for the official groundbreaking- a product of their first Metropolis finances collectively specializing in public areas, which obtained approval from all however one Councilmember.
Whereas using a motorbike down the skatepark’s easy and winding pathway, one would by no means notice that they’re using atop an enormous community of bridge assist columns pushed into the bedrock of the earth, electrical and fiber optic cables, site visitors and climate instrumentation, and a fancy stormwater system that stops flooding all through the Riverside and Brooklyn neighborhoods. The Artist Stroll Skate Park is in impact, one of many largest public infrastructure tasks in Jacksonville.
Jill Enz is the Chief of Pure and Marine Sources for the Metropolis of Jacksonville. She was successfully the Metropolis’s mission supervisor to work with each the private and non-private aspect of the skate park growth. She notes, “There are a number of objects that is probably not apparent within the skate park that relate to the stuffed ponds and bridge work, such because the storm water covers have been raised between 4-6’ to be included into the skate park. They’re most evident within the space closest to Park Road. There’s a skateable platform there with 2 manholes – these deal with storm water from Park Road, the on/off ramps to I95 and components of I95.”
Whereas some lament that there are not any bowls all through the skate park, the skateable surfaces all needed to be designed on prime of enormous underground stormwater tanks. A go searching gives you clues. Jill provides, “Adjoining to the bridge columns there are giant drainpipes that enable for storm water from I95 to attach with the underground storm water system.” The very fiber optic cables that present communication and web providers all run parallel to the interstate freeway after which are routed off to numerous neighborhoods. If you wish to scroll on Instagram, make a TikTok of skating by means of the park, or order and pay to your lunch- these fiber optic cables are critically necessary. “We needed to transfer and re-install fiber cables through the development course of. The structural integrity of the bridge needed to be maintained, so we now have to put in and supply direct paths underground which can be clear and be out of the way in which from different infrastructure,” explains Jill.
Zachary Wormhoudt was the park’s panorama architect for CA Skateparks. Not solely did the park need to be designed round all the underground infrastructure, it needed to designed in a method that comes with creative components. “Mainly we constructed it like an artwork museum,” says Zachary. “We created three completely different rooms, every with their very own skate components. However the rooms are designed in order that non-skating actions can happen. A part of the skateable options additionally function a stage for non-skating concert events, film nights and no matter different reside performances that might happen.”
Components from different non permanent skating occasions have been included into Artist Stroll Skate Park. Attendees from Go Skate Day in James Weldon Johnson Park between 2012 and 2016 and even Jacksonville’s SLS Tremendous Crown Championship occasion on the former Jacksonville Touchdown web site will discover the railings that mimic the previous hand rails at JWJ Park and the concrete rail slides that made up the road course on the SLS occasion.
Landscaping, pathways, ramps that boldly spell out JAX all add to the creative movement of the area. The substitute turf monds can be utilized for seating for fogeys watching their youngsters skate, but additionally function seating for the stage or may very well be used for train or yoga courses. Subsequent door, the long-sought RAM extension is being constructed that might finally present parking for RAM and areas that might broaden the market’s capability.
“I go to the area and I’m actually proud,” says former RAM Market Supervisor Krysten Bennett. “So many individuals put a lot effort into this for greater than a decade. I hear folks ask on a regular basis ‘Why did THEY do it that method?’ or ‘Why didn’t THEY do one thing completely different?’ Effectively there is no such thing as a THEY. Nothing will get completed until you’re employed actually laborious and get lots of people on board. When nothing appears like its working or shifting at a quick tempo, that’s when these mysterious THEY individuals are working laborious and doing one thing that we will all take pleasure in.”
The Artist Stroll Skate Park is busy seven days every week and utilized by folks from all walks of life- younger, previous and from all types of social, financial and ethnic backgrounds. Rain, chilly climate, humid situations and even the absence of daylight don’t maintain folks away. Skateparks don’t get constructed beneath bridges day by day. In Jacksonville, lots of people got here collectively and did it. They acquired this one proper.
Article by Mike Discipline