City still searching for skate park home

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Malibu is no longer on schedule to meet a self-imposed deadline of December 1st for finding a temporary home for the city’s skate park.

City Councilmember Jefferson Wagner predicted that not much would be accomplished in the month of December.

“We’re hoping to settle on a location sometime in January,” Wagner said after a meeting of the skate park committee last Wednesday. The committee is scheduled to meet again Dec. 15.

Papa Jack’s Skate Park can’t return soon enough for longtime visitors such as Blake Sewell-Howard, who began skating at the park at the age of five and continued for nine years until it closed.

“I was almost in tears when I found out,” Sewell-Howard said. “I’ve met all my friends here, this is like a second home to me.”

The park has been without a home since the end of October, when it was evicted from its longtime location at Civic Center Way and Cross Creek Road. The city of Malibu had been leasing the land from developer Steve Soboroff at a rate of $1 a year until last December, when he served the city a 90-day notice to move. He later extended the notice to the end of October to give the city more time to find a new home for the skate park. Soboroff plans to build a Whole Foods and other buildings on the vacated land. The skate park ramps are now being held in the upper parking lot above city hall.

The city is researching both temporary and long-term options for the skate park. Locations being discussed for the short term include parking lot 12 at Zuma Beach, Malibu Bluffs Park and the Adamson Hotel grounds across from Pepperdine. Long-term options include a two-acre property at La Paz that the city will own once the permits for the property are approved, and a property at Busch Drive and Pacific Coast Highway the city could purchase in the future.

Soboroff has pledged a $25,000 donation to assist with the move and new skate park. The city has also allocated $10,000 for the effort. Estimated costs of moving the skate park range from $15,000 to $50,000, which includes the price of “fencing, windscreens, resurfacing, access gates, relocation of ramps and office trailer, and utility connections,” according to a city report.

Parks and Recreation Coordinator Raul Lizarraga managed Papa Jack’s for five years and met his wife at the skate park. During the summer, the skate camp at Papa Jack averages about 15 youths a day.

“Our ultimate goal is to get a permanent location, a full skate park with a concrete bowl,” Lizarraga said. “But right now we just need a place to move the ramps to so we don’t go too long without a place for these kids to skate. I hope we get more support.”

Sherie Rose’s sons have been attending the skate camps at Papa Jack’s for more than five years and she has concerns about it closing.

“We’re taking the chance away for our kids to improve their skills,” Rose said. “People move to beach communities for the surf and skate culture, this takes away that spirit.”