Ever since Papa Jack’s Skate Park closed in 2011, the City of Malibu has been without a skate park. And it looks like it’ll be a while before the city has one again after officials recently ruled out building a temporary site in a Zuma Beach parking lot.
“Moving forth with a temporary park is not something that is realistic or favorable to the city,” City Councilman Skylar Peak said.
Peak, who co-chairs a skate park ad hoc committee with Councilwoman Joan House, said the committee would refocus its efforts on finding a permanent site after concluding that renting space temporarily at Zuma Beach would be too expensive.
Parks and Recreation Director Bob Stallings said the city never entered direct negotiations with the Los Angeles County Beaches and Harbors over possibly renting the lot at Zuma, but early projections showed it would cost Malibu upwards of $100,000 a year to rent approximately 40 parking spaces required to construct a temporary skate site. Another cost considered was the relocation and setup of the old Papa Jack’s ramps and equipment, which Stalling estimated to be somewhere between $50,000 and $75,000.
“Also, Los Angeles County hasn’t had any setup like this in any other parking lots of any other beach facilities. They would be setting a precedent,” Stallings said. “It may have had to go up to County Board of Supervisors to get approval.”
The city would have also had to mitigate for the loss of those 40 parking spaces, according to Stallings, to avoid conflict over the public’s right to beach access.
“We didn’t see any real options with coming up with the other parking spaces,” he said.
Overall safety on a site just feet away from Pacific Coast Highway was also a consideration, Stallings said, as officials pondered the logistics of parents dropping their kids along Malibu’s main roadway.
“Papa Jack’s skatepark was relatively tucked away in the middle of town,” Stallings said. “During the summer time you have so many people in that [Zuma] area that some of the parents didn’t feel comfortable dropping their kids off and picking them up again. It sounded like more of an inconvenience to parents.”
As for a permanent site, Peak said the city is looking at different spaces at Bluffs Park as “optimal locations” for a skatepark location. “The skateboard community is very adamant that we get a skate park here in city,” Peak said.
Last year, the City Council approved a $38,200 agreement with Wormhoudt Inc. for the design of a permanent skate park in Malibu.
A draft assessment report by Wormhoudt showed six possible skatepark locations at Bluffs Park.
Stallings emphasized that the city is only looking at the 10 acres currently owned and run by the City of Malibu, and not the acreage the city is considering acquiring in a trade with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. The controversial proposal would put Bluffs’ entire 93 acres under city control, while handing over 532 acres of Malibu-controlled Charmlee Wilderness Park on the western side of town.
Mockups of the six possibilities show a skatepark ranging in size from 8,000 to 13,000 square feet along the southernmost edge of Bluffs overlooking Malibu Road.
Some residents who live near Bluffs Park have publicly opposed a skatepark being built there, arguing that it would impact the “scenic corridor” and cause too much noise.
For now, Stallings said the old ramps from Papa Jack’s remain disassembled and stacked where Papa Jack’s once thrived with young skaters near Civic Center Way and Cross Creek Road in central Malibu.
