We WILL indeed lose SOME of the park with the reconfiguration of Spaghetti Junction downtown. Most notably, the deep end, including the full-pipe. While I do not frequent this end of the park myself, I sincerely hope it is included in the rebuild, as it is one of the few skatepark full-pipes in the country and is an icon of the Louisville park.
From the Courier-Journal, written by Sheldon Shafer (with a quote from TheProfessor even):
A section of the Louisville Extreme Park will be leveled and rebuilt out of the way of a highway ramp that will skirt the park as part of the reconstruction of Spaghetti Junction.
The popular skate park will not have to be closed to accommodate the Spaghetti Junction project, said Metro Parks Director Mike Heitz. Some of the skating facilities and the restrooms will be razed to make way for a new ramp leading to eastbound Interstate 64 in the redesigned complex series of roads and ramps.
A series of bowls and a pipe system designed for the most experienced users will be removed from the northwest part of the park and rebuilt in a grassy area at the northeast corner near Clay and Witherspoon streets.
A land survey is planned to affirm that the skating facilities can be rebuilt there, Heitz said. The west side of the skate park will be demolished only after the replacement facilities are completed.
Highway officials recently redesigned the Ohio River Bridges Project, which includes two new bridges and a revamp of Spaghetti Junction, to leave the huge interchange largely in place, rather than shifting it south. The changes are expected to shave more than $1 billion from the project’s cost.
The original project design called for a new ramp to pass over, and near the center of, the 1.85-acre skate park that opened in 2002. Although highway officials said they would try to avoid sinking pillars into the skating surface, there was no guarantee on how much of the skate park would remain usable, officials said.
Under the new Spaghetti Junction design, the ramp to I-64 will pass along the west side of the park, leaving about three-quarters of the park untouched, including facilities designed for beginner and intermediate skateboarders and bicyclists.
Mayor Greg Fischer said in an interview Friday that he is pleased that a compromise will allow the park to remain open. “Although a portion of the Extreme Park will be impacted, our team is working to ensure that when it’s rebuilt, it will continue to be a world-class facility.”
Jason Gainous, a University of Louisville associate professor of political science and a frequent skateboard user of the park, said the skateboarding community “is extremely pleased that the park will not be shut down as a result of the bridges project.”
“While we will miss the section of the park that has to be torn out for the new Spaghetti Junction, we are thrilled that the bridges budget will include monies to rebuild (the skate park).” Gainous said he is confident that the Extreme Park will remain on “the cutting edge of skate parks around the world.”
Gainous heads a group that helps maintain the skate park under the city’s Adopt-a-Park program.
Heitz said skate park users will have an opportunity to consult with parks officials and engineers on the design of the replacement bowls and ramps.
Skateboarder Pat Kagi said he considers the park “a very special place, perhaps unlike any other in the whole world. It would be ridiculous if they did have to close it. To some people, the park is therapy. To take it away would be a big deal.”
John Sacksteder, the project manager for the bridges project’s engineering consultants who has been working on ways to minimize the impact of the Spaghetti Junction work on the skate park, didn’t return phone calls Friday.
Heitz said the cost to raze the western side of the Extreme Park and to develop the replacement facilities will come from the Ohio River Bridges Project budget. He declined to estimate the cost. He said the replacement facilities could be completed by late next year or early 2014.
Sacksteder recently speculated that work in and around the skate park would occur around 2015.
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Time is short, and there is absolutely NO guarantee of anything when dealing with city and state officials. While I am optimistic and hopeful, I also know that on a whim, they could decide to destroy the whole thing. Because they can. So get your skate on Cretins.
