Dean Wong/staff
Volunteers mop the water from the Ballard skate bowl after a rain last week. The bowl’s days could be numbered after this week.

Seattle Parks and Recreation Department made the announcement last Friday. The new plan will offer a smaller “street skate play area” which planners say will appeal to a wide range of users while doubling as a festival space during large Ballard events.

The parks department will discuss details of the new plan at a public meeting on Tuesday, March 9 from 7 - 9 p.m. in the Segway Building next to the skate park.

“I’m not really happy about it,” said Kelly O’Neill, a Ballard resident who helped start a new group called the Puget Sound Skate Park Association. The group was formed to preserve the existing skate park.

“It was a tough decision. The bowl is a great bowl and it’s a well used facility,” said Cathy Tuttle, the park planner for the Ballard Civic Center Plan.

Tuttle did say the department is moving forward on developing a full service skate park, which includes a bowl, possibly at Lower Woodland west of the ball fields. The Parks Department still needs to get public input on the use of Lower Woodland Park for a skate park and would seek state funding.

The staff is also looking at sites in South Seattle.

“It would take years to get a new skate park,” said O’Neill.

O’Neill’s group believes the city’s skateboarders are underserved with only one outdoor facility. Besides the Ballard Skate Park, there’s a park at the Seattle Center. That facility is owned by the Seattle Center.

“There’s clearly a need for places to skateboard,” said Parks Superintendent Ken Bounds in a statement last week. “The heavy use of the temporary skate park in Ballard is evidence of that. I’m in the process of creating a Skateboard Advisory Committee to help us identify good sites to build them.”

After the March 9 meeting, parks staff will make a recommendation to the Board of Park Commissioners, who will hold a public hearing on April 8. A recommendation to the Superintendent will be made at an April 22 meeting. He will then make a decision.

One reason the latest plan includes only a small skate area is that a skateboarding facility requires at least an acre of land in order to include a bowl, plus ramps and quarter pipes.

Skateboarders say there are no residential homes near the bowl. “This park is serving the neighborhood and is doing that very well. So to move it somewhere else is taking something away. The location is perfect in the neighborhood with no houses,” said O’Neill.

The housing situation in the immediate area is going to change soon, however.

The QFC store next to the bowl is planning to expand, doubling in size. A developer will come in and build housing above the new store.

With this new project just a few feet from the park, the bowl would not fit with the site selection criteria in the park department’s Skateboard Policy.

Parks Department Spokesperson Dewey Potter, said, “we try not to have active recreation next to people’s houses.”

Seattle Parks and Recreation released three park designs in January to solicit public comment. Two of the designs included skateboarding areas, the other did not.

The plans sparked debate in the community over the inclusion of the skate park in the Ballard Civic Center’s plan.

The Ballard Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to Mayor Greg Nickels opposing the inclusion of the skate park in the Civic Center park design in January.

“It was not part of the Ballard Neighborhood Plan or the Ballard Municipal Plan. It was supposed to be an interim site, the Ballard District Council approved it as an interim site,” said Beth Williamson Miller, Executive Director of the Ballard Chamber of Commerce.

Some parents sent letters to the News-Tribune endorsing the park, saying it was good for their kids and Ballard.

Tuttle says she has a whole stack of letters on her desk from other business owners who like having the concrete bowl at the park.

“There’s no way this park can serve as a complete skate park,” she said.

The bowl is the main feature of the park and draws skateboarders from all around, including visiting skate board professionals.

Because of that, Miller was also concerned with the park is becoming a regional attraction which brings in more cars and adds to the parking problems downtown Ballard already faces.

Skate boarders interviewed before the “bow-less” proposal was announced raved about the bowl.

“This is one of the best public spaces I’ve ever skated. We don’t want the bowl out. World class pros say they love this place,” said Mike Pugh, who has been skateboarding for 29 years.

Pugh says the bowl can be made presentable within the concept of a new park design. “There’s no reason for it to go. That’s why people come to Ballard. People come from all over for the bowl,” he said.

O’Neill’s organization has been circulating a petition to gather support for the skate park. Some Ballard businesses have signed it.

Miller says those businesses are not looking at the “big picture,” The Ballard Neighborhood Plan took 8 years to write and thousands of hours of meetings.

The skaters and their supporters are a determined group.

Pugh emphasized the community atmosphere at the park. When he’s too tired to skateboard he likes to hang out with the others and just watch.

“Kids have the time of their life. There’s seldom any problems here. Everyone has a great time. It’s a like a clubhouse,” Pugh said.

“There’s no bowl like this for 60 miles. I’ve dreamed of a place like this for 29 years,” said Pugh.