The city of Maplewood has received most of a grant it requested to build a skateboard park — enough to build a basic park, according to a Nov. 4 email from Maplewood Assistant City Manager/Director of Public Works Anthony Traxler to the Maplewood Park Board.
The city received $143,250 from the Municipal Park Grant Commission of St Louis County. The amount is $20,000 less than the city asked for, but is enough to build a basic park, according to Traxler. He said additional obstacles, bowls and rails can be added later.
It would be better to spend our limited tax dollars on fixing the pothole filled side streets of MW than these needless attractions. Kinda like St. John and Florissant putting up fancy wrought iron lamp post in front of abandoned strip malls and check cashing stores…
I for one am excited to see this! My son and his friends are avid skaters! Will be nice to have a park close to home for them!! We’ve been wanting this since we moved into the area 6 years ago!
Yes!!! Excited to have a park close by!
Skateboards are for younger people. Dogs are for all ages! A dog park improvement would have been better.
These come under two separate budgets. The skate park is being paid for by a grant. The dog park improvement would come from the city budget. Two different things. Not comparable.
I’m going to attempt a comparison.
The cost of the skate park was $185,000, so the city will have to cover the $45,000 difference.
The cost of the dog park would be roughly $40,000. Had the City put any of the same effort into finding grants for that expansion, coupled with the yearly fees from increased membership to an attractive dog park, it would have been a negligible portion of the park budget.
We have a dog park. We have zero skate parks and we haven’t many young and old skate boarders here in town. I’m happy that we care enough about our youth to provide them with healthy, desirable, and awesome outlets to enjoy activity, nature, and they’re community! Don’t be such a single-sighted Scrooge.
We have many skateboarders in town** darn, autocorrect
As a former skate boarder, I love skate parks, but the skate parks that are really awesome are waaaay more than 180K. Well done skateparks cost upwards of a million dollars. Anthony said obstacles can be added later….this is shaping up to be a concrete parking lot. Its going to be a waste of money. Again, nothing was better than riding around a neighborhood and grinding random curbs and poles. Maybe we could turn the Hummert memorial into some stellar grindage for the boarders?
There seems to be demand and opportunity for both.