Work crews this week are shaping what will be the bowl of a new skateboard park in Ocean City near the Ocean City Fire Department between Fifth and Sixth Streets.
Metal coping outlines the bowl and an excavator is shaping the contours. Once the shape is complete, the bowl will be reinforced with rebar and concrete poured.
The project remains on schedule for completion sometime in August.
The new $732,284 concrete facility will replace a park at Sixth Street and Boardwalk that was dismantled in 2011 due to safety concerns.
City Council on April 23 awarded a $732,284 contract to Spohn Ranch Inc. of Los Angeles, Calif., for the supply and installation of the park. Spohn Ranch was the sole bidder on the job, which came in just under the estimated $750,000 for the work.
The park is being constructed on a city-owned property parking lot bordered by the Fire Department and Ecumenical Clothes Closet, the Ocean City Primary School, the Ocean City Tabernacle and a commercial property.
“The design was developed to provide a park with an appropriate degree of challenge and fun balanced with safety,” Mike Dattilo, assistant to Mayor Jay Gillian, wrote in a memo to City Council in April. “There has been an extensive amount of input provided by the local skating community.”
The final design of the park includes a bowl and snake run situated near the West Avenue side of the park with the entrance on the Asbury Avenue side. Because the park designer recommended against the use of pegs, bicycles likely will be prohibited from using the facility.
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Ocean City approved the spending of $750,000 for construction of the park.
The city will be reimbursed $500,000 from a Green Acres Cape May County Recreation Grant that was announced in September 2014, and City Council approved a capital plan that calls for borrowing $250,000 for the project.
