After years of discussion, planning and fundraising, construction will soon begin for a long-awaited, $2.4 million public skatepark in State College.
Borough Council on Monday unanimously approved a $568,339 contract with WG Land Company LLC to perform site work for the Action Sports Park at High Point Park on Whitehall Road, which will include facilities for skateboards, scooters and bikes. WG Land Company was the low bidder among four received for the first phase of the project, which “will include all site preparation along with removal and replacement of amenity items such as water fountains, benches, and trash receptacles,” according to a memo included the agenda for Monday’s meeting.
“It was a little more than seven years ago when I was on council, I was appointed to chair a special ad hoc committee to look into the building of an action sports park,” Council President Evan Myers said. “And I am very happy tonight to see where we’ve gotten ourselves to. There were a lot of folks on that committee. We did a lot of work, a lot of research. We had a lot of support by borough staff to do that. And we’re on the precipice of seeing that happen.”
Council also agreed to re-advertise for bids for construction of the Action Sports Park proper with conditions of the borough’s Responsible Contractor Ordinance waived after two bids were received and neither met the responsible contractor qualifications. The move allows for those bids to be submitted again and the low bidder accepted.
Construction of the park itself will still take place this year. Among several state grants awarded to the project, $495,000 from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural
Resources expires on Dec. 31 if substantial construction is not completed.
The Responsible Contractor Ordinance, which was approved by council last fall and went into effect in March, includes requirements related to safety training and prevailing wage payments, as well as that 70% of the craft labor workforce on projects over $250,000 be journeypersons who have completed a state- or federally-approved apprenticeship training program or registered apprentices currently enrolled in such a program.
A provision of the ordinance allows the requirements to be waived if no bids are received from a bidder who meets the responsible contractor.
Site work bidding was let before the RCO went into effect. Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said that for two borough construction projects that have been let since the RCO went into effect and meet its threshold, both have had to be re-advertised because they did not receive qualifying bids.
But, he noted, the Action Sports Park is unique.
“We are only aware of a couple of contractors nationally that do this kind of skate park work,” Fountaine said. “Both of them that we’re aware of bid on this project, but were not able to certify the responsible contractor provisions. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t others out there, but these are the companies that we were aware of. I think had this bid been let prior to the Responsible Contractor Ordinance, these are the same two bidders we would have received.”
Added borough engineer Andy Arnold, “The skate park is a unique construction project. It is a sculpture as opposed to flat or vertical concrete work. It’s a different animal than most of the borough projects you’re going to be seeing.”
Myers said he was disappointed no RCO-qualified contractors bid, but did not want to slow down the long-planned skatepark.
“I did speak with some folks in union leadership in the area about this. They too are quite disappointed that this this is the case,” Myers said. “At the same time neither I nor they want to stand in the way of getting this needed project done. I hope it’s not indicative of what we will face in the future and certainly the folks I spoke to feel the same way. Perhaps it’s indicative that some may not really appreciate or understand the role that safety plays in in the construction trades. Certainly, I think what I would recommend, and it’s not part of this resolution, but recommend that the borough work on developing a list of contractors, union or not, that qualify under the provisions of the ordinance that we pass for future projects.”
The project should illustrate the opportunity available for companies that would qualify under the RCO, council member Matt Herndon said.
“For this project, given that citizens have been pushing for the Action Sports Park for years and that money’s already appropriated in this year’s budget and that delaying it could lose literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside grants, I think it’s clear that we should move forward with it,” Herndon said. “Our responsible contractor ordinance is relatively new, and so I hope that contractors in the area take note of it and improve their workforces to meet it. If one of them had done that this time, it seems like they would have won this bid. So, if they’re looking for business, I hope they’re looking at this and realizing what they’ve got to do to get it.”
In response to a question from council member Josh Portney, solicitor Terry Williams said that once council waives the RCO requirements for a particular project, it cannot give special consideration to a bidder that would meet the provisions and must award it to the lowest qualified bid.
HOW WE GOT HERE AND WHAT’S PLANNED
It’s been a long road to the development since it a skatepark was first proposed in 2013 to the Centre Region Council of Government Parks Capital Committee by BMX legend and local resident Jamie Bestwick. Borough staff began looking into the project the following year and it had been a part of capital improvement plans ever since.
In 2017, Orchard Park was proposed as a potential location, but that was met with opposition by residents of the Greentree neighborhood. An ad hoc committee was then formed and proposed several locations, before ultimately identifying High Point Park as the preferred location.
Nearby residents did not oppose the proposal for High Point Park, which is owned by the borough and maintained by Centre Region Parks and Recreation.
The underutilized High Point Park was selected in part because it’s accessible by bus, bike path and car, less than a mile from State College Area High School, Delta and Corl Street Elementary and 1.7 miles from the center of downtown.
The wheelchair-accessible facility will replace the unused baseball field at High Point Park, taking up about 3 acres of the 6-acre lot. It will be designed for all skill levels with amenities for park and street-style riding with ledges, stairs, rails, banks, a mini-ramp area, a brick volcano, quarterpipe, planting areas with boulders for seating spots and a center courtyard with a large granite pad.
The upper part of the design is a plaza-style park for skateboarders while the lower elevation has been refined to better support scooters and bikes. The surrounding area will be landscaped to be enjoyable for all, with or without wheels.
Jake Johnson, a professional skateboarder and State College native who opened IQ Skateshop on South Pugh Street in 2021, and his father, Tim, a professor emeritus of landscape architecture at Penn State, designed the concept for the park and enlisted New Line Skateparks to develop final technical designs and construction plans.
Since 2020, when the initiative began in earnest, the project has received multiple state grants, including the DCNR grant, $250,000 from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and
Economic Development and $250,000 from the Commonwealth Financing Agency, among others. It has also received financial support from foundations and organizations and a volunteer committee led private fundraising efforts.
