Work crews are spraying concrete to preserve the shape of a bowl and snake run that will be a pair of highlights at a skateboard park under construction between Fifth and Sixth Streets, Asbury and West avenues.
Wooden molds run along a metal coping and help shape the concrete bowl.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. It remains on schedule for completion sometime in August.
Metal coping outlines the top of the bowl and a mesh of steel rebar follows its contours. Workers are spreading concrete across the rebar to form the bowl.
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 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 the 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.
