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Date: 4/19/2022
EASTHAMPTON – On April 11, a packed house of community members and city officials met on the second floor of 50 Payson Ave. to discuss initial design plans for an all-inclusive, “all-wheels” skate park behind the Municipal Building in Easthampton.
For the last few years, Easthampton Skatepark organizer Angie Falkowski and her group, which consists of Eddie Comini, Jeff Burke, Matt Boucher and Noah Halpern-Memanus, have been advocating for a new park in the city through fundraising programs and municipal and community outreach.
After testing a few locations, including the new Mountain View School, the skate park organizers, Mayor Nicole LaChapelle, At-Large City Councilor Owen Zaret and City Planner Jeff Bagg agreed that the section behind the Municipal Building and Public Safety Complex at 32-50 Payson Ave. was ideal. A review of multiple locations throughout the city determined that many could not accommodate a park due to the proximity of the neighborhood, and as a result, Bagg and the city landed on the Payson Avenue location.
“The location downtown, with or without events, it will help draw people more into downtown,” said Bagg. “That is a benefit we have with this location.”
In January, Reminder Publishing reported that City Council approved $42,500 in Community Preservation Act funding to create designs and conduct public meetings to obtain feedback from the public on the matter.
During the April meeting, Bagg indicated that when the city completed their 2021 Open Space & Recreation Plan, building a skate park rose to the top of their list as an alternative to organized sports thanks to Easthampton Skatepark’s determination to push a project like this forward.
“That really helps us start this conversation,” said Bagg. “And that really helps us pursue grant funds for actual construction.”
The city hired Tampa, FL-based skate park design firm Platform Group earlier this year to create design and cost estimates suitable for Easthampton. Tito Poratta, a co-founder of Platform, presented the initial design plans for the skate park during the April 11 meeting, and asked for feedback from the public.
According to Poratta, while the main goal is to build the skatepark, the general hope for him and the city is to pursue a multi-year vision that also includes a trail that connects the bike path to the skate park, as well as a third phase that could include a skatepark bowl.
The goal is to create a park that is environmentally-conscious of the surroundings and accessible for all ages and abilities. Poratta and a couple of residents are also interested in adding some seating area and lights somewhere within the park, as well as some other amenities to reflect Easthampton’s growing art scene. The city is looking at 8,500 square feet for the park itself.
“It’s really just a beautiful area of the town, and it would be really cool to activate it,” said Poratta. “We want to make it a really place to just travel through.”
Poratta confirmed to the group in attendance that this skatepark will be an “all-wheel” park where BMX riders, roller skaters, scooters and many others will be welcome. “If we’re going to create a park, it’s going to be open for everyone,” said Poratta. “It’s an all-wheel park … super friendly.”
According to Bagg, the city is unsure when the park could be finished, mainly because they need to figure out where grant funds would come from. “There’s a potential round of grant opportunities that opens this July that we think we’ll aim for,” said Bagg. “If, for some reason we don’t apply this July, we’ll apply next July. I would say a year from whenever those applications go in, we would hope to see a shovel go in the ground.”
From an optimistic standpoint, Bagg said that the park could be finished by the end of 2023. From a conservative standpoint, however, the park may be finished in 2024.
“I will say, there’s a lot of momentum right now, and that’s good,” said Bagg. “You have to cast out a long timeline for this kind of stuff.”
City Council President Homar Gomez, who was in attendance for the meeting on April 11, agreed with the residents that this park was a “great idea,” and brought up the idea of possibly adding tournaments at the park to bring community together. “I think we all can have stuff in our city,” said Gomez. “We can have space for everybody.”
This is not the first time a skate park will be implemented in Easthampton. About two decades ago, a skate park was built in Easthampton in honor of Hampshire County resident David MacDonald but it was torn down and given away by the city at the time. MacDonald’s parents – who raised $25,000 for that park to be built – were in attendance to the meeting on April 11 and noted how that was the first official skate park in the city.
“I hope we can get something like this,” said MacDonald’s father, Bob, during the meeting. “It’s about damn time something like this comes about in memory of the kids that need this.”
“The key that we want to try and get is that there’s a lot of support right now for this,” said Bagg, adding that the city will look into commemorating MacDonald in some way. “There’s new people in city government, and I’m one of them, and I’m happy to be here to be pushing this forward. We’re trying to build those relationships now within city government level because it’s not clear to me that that existed then, and I think that’s unfortunately what contributed to some of the actions that happened in the early 2000s.”
The next public meeting will be scheduled for sometime in May. Cost estimates and other design discussions will occur.