The city council will decide Monday whether to spend $40K for a permanent skate park at Bluffs Park.
By Angelique LaCour / Special to The Malibu Times
Malibu skateboarders have been without a safe location for skateboarding since Papa Jack’s skate park closed in October, but new developments are afoot with the city’s efforts to find both a temporary site for Papa Jack’s skate ramps as well as get the ball rolling on a permanent skate park.
One place heavily rumored as a temporary location for the old Papa Jack’s ramps is the parking lot at Bluffs Park next to the Michael Landon Community Center. But use of that site has been delayed while city officials negotiated with the owners of a private parcel adjacent to the ballfields. That property would be used as a temporary parking lot to make up for the loss of parking next to the Landon Center should the ramps be located there.
Now those negotiations appear close to a conclusion, and the attorney for the property owners should have an agreement to use the property ready to submit to the city within two weeks, according to the city’s Parks and Recreation Director Bob Stallings.
Developer Steve Soboroff, who evicted Papa Jack’s last year from the Civic Center property where he intends to build a Whole Foods grocery and other buildings, has donated $25,000 to move the Papa Jack’s ramps elsewhere. The City of Malibu is believed to have added $10,000 to pay for moving costs.
However, the Bluffs Park parking lot has been acknowledged by city officials all along as only a stopgap solution.
Many community members involved for the search for a temporary site believe the only long-term solution is a permanent park with a concrete bowl. Several have started a website, malibuskatepark.com, which includes information on funding, location, potential staffing, environmental impact and parking. It appears that process is going to move forward soon.
One item on Monday’s City Council meeting agenda directs staff to prepare a Request for Proposal (RFP) on a permanent skate park. An RFP is a document that includes the scope and cost of a proposed project that is distributed to potential contractors to solicit bids.
The RFP on Monday’s agenda would appropriate up to $40,000 from the city’s general fund for consulting services to build a permanent skate park.
That money would pay for “conceptual and schematic design, grading and drainage plans, community meetings to discuss needs, and final construction documents and specifications,” according to the staff report for the item.
If the council passes it, Stallings said the RFP would be available on the city’s website within two weeks, and will be distributed directly to approximately 10 landscape design firms that specialize in skate parks.
About $5,000 in private money was also raised at a recent benefit at Duke’s Malibu.
The most talked-about site for a permanent park is Bluffs Park. One option presented in the staff report is a “mixed-use skate plaza” along the park’s southern edge, which “would combine challenging skate features with pedestrian family pathways, and landscaping amid a skate park layout.” This design would allow for BMX bicycle and rollerblade uses in addition to skateboarding.
Another option would be a traditional skate park in the southwest corner of Bluffs Park that would be used only for skateboarding, according to the staff report.
Kristina Kell, one of the volunteers who has been active in community outreach on the permanent skate park idea, said talks have already been held with AYSO soccer, Malibu Little League and various homeowner’s associations about putting the park at Bluffs Park.
The sports teams said they would not give opposition to the skate park at Bluffs Park as long as no current field space or parking is taken away, Kell said. Kell said there are no plans to do either.
However, she did say she expects some opposition to the RFP item on Monday’s agenda from a group that meets at Bluffs Park to do Tai Chi. Kell said the group had expressed opposition to adding a skate park at Bluffs Park when she spoke to them Tuesday.