Talking Kelso

The skate park is done. On Thursday, November 12, at 12:30 PM, you’re welcome to join us for a grand opening ceremony, after which the park will be open for skating!

Finally…

Construction is slated to begin on the skate park at Rotary Park on Monday, August 10. There may be a small ceremony associated, so keep your eyes on this spot for the latest updates!

Okay, it’s not really ‘done.’ But at least we were able to award a contract for its construction this week. After nearly a decade of process and money hunting, it is nice to have this project moving forward.

I also enjoyed being able to hire a local firm as the general contractor. While I’m sure other contractors would do a good job, it’s comforting to know that you’ve got a company that has to live in the community once they’re done. They can’t just walk away and leave a subpar project behind. Of course, even better is the fact that this particular company, Pacific Tech Construction, has been around for a long time and has a strong history with major projects.

The hope is that the park can get under construction within 2-4 weeks, and can be completed this year. Next stop: the grand opening!

One of the three bids received for the skate park this month was $363,000, a drop of more than $60,000 from the sole bid we received in May. It’s also nice to see a local contractor, Pacific Tech Construction, is the low bidder. Council will decide whether to accept any of the bids on July 7.

After the lone skate park bid we received last month was rejected by council, we asked that a request for bids be sent again. A local contractor pointed out that in our original request, we had required bidders to have extensive skate park construction experience, and that item limited the number of prospective bidders.

For the second round, staff changed that provision to require experience in similar concrete construction, but removed the requirement that the experience be specifically in skate parks. The hope is that expanding the potential pool of bidders will result in more, cheaper options for construction.

From what I’ve heard so far, it might be working. The city manager indicated that several bids have been received so far. Though I have no idea what the figures on them are, the mere fact that we have multiple options to choose from would seem to imply we’ll get a better price than the first time we tried. We expect to hear the results of the bid and choose a contractor (or not!) at our July 7 meeting.

Word on the street is that the city was awarded the $150k skate park grant we applied for from the state. Watch the newspaper or this space for more information as it becomes available!

Update:  I’ve confirmed this to be true…we’re on the way to finishing this LOOOOONG project!

You might have seen the article in today’s Daily News about the status of the skate park. As it pointed out, funding sources have been hard to come by. The Tony Hawk Foundation, which could only do $25,000 maximum grants in the first place, turned the project down, and the big money needed from the state isn’t being handed out this year.

The article mentioned that I was open to the discussion of the city paying for the facility if grant funds can’t be found, or if they’re not sufficient to cover the whole cost of the project. I’ve never spent 10 seconds on a skateboard, but I think the facility would be a boon to the youth of our community. The project, as currently designed, would provide a top notch skate park that would give kids a recreational option that they don’t currently have in Kelso. If you want to skate in Kelso, you’re probably going to end up hacking off a property owner in order to do so.

Any thoughts from the crowd on whether this seems like a project worthy of city investment? Let me know…leave a comment with your thoughts.