Thanks to an approved grant by the Snoqualmie City Council, the city’s skate park project planned for Snoqualmie Ridge could begin construction by next summer.
The 2,500 square-foot park will be built next to the Snoqualmie Valley YMCA, facing S.E. Ridge Street.
Larry White, Snoqualmie Parks and Recreation superintendent, said the skate park project has been in the works since 2007 and the parks department has been trying to raise money through grants to pay for the project, which has an estimated cost of $350,000. According to White, the parks department has committed to raising all of the grant funding for the project.
In May, the Snoqualmie City Council approved a $175,000 grant from the State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) for the skate park. The grant required a 50 percent match from the city, but parks department staff had not raised the needed amount by then.
“We were awarded the $175,000 and didn’t have the match in place. The mayor said we don’t want to give up, we’ll match it so we do secure the 175,000,” White said.
Parks staff are continuing to seek grant funding and other sources of revenue for the project.
The project has also seen community support from groups like the Snoqualmie Valley Rotary Club, which helped fund community input meetings in the fall of 2015 and has made a donation to the project itself.
“We’ve held community input meetings last fall, took those ideas and are 60 percent complete with our design,” White said.
The city selected Seattle-based skate park design company Grindline Skate Parks for the design phase.
“We went through a rigorous design process, put out a request for proposals, received nine proposals from different skate park companies throughout the country,” he said. “They (Grindline) met the requirements for what we are looking for.”
White explained that youth organizations and individuals have expressed their desire for a skate park in Snoqualmie for many years. As growth on the Ridge continued to increase, that sentiment became more common until the city decided to pursue the project.
“Growth on the Ridge is pretty huge,” White said. “So we are trying to give kids a place where they can skate, keep them off the roads and sidewalks.”
Once design is complete, the city will advertise for construction bids. Grindline is expected to be among those in competition for the contract. Grindline has also built skate parks in Carnation, Duvall, and at Crossroads Park and Highlands Skate Plaza in Bellevue.
“Our hope is to get the design completed in the next month or so and then we are going to put it out to bid in the fall or winter,” White said. “Our hope is to break ground early next summer.”
