They're skate park artists
STEPHEN STURGES/Courtesy photo Keith Powers shoots concrete into the transition section of the new Coeur d’Alene Skate Park while local skateboarder Mikey Carpenter catches the overspray.
Ben Hlavacek smooths out the concrete as it begins to take its shape at the new skate park under construction in Coeur d'Alene. (STEPHEN STURGES/Courtesy)
Fresh concrete and new transitions go up at the skate park project under way in Coeur d'Alene. (STEPHEN STURGES/Courtesy)
Geth Nobel paves the way for new generations of skateboarders at the new skate park being built in Coeur d'Alene. (STEPHEN STURGES/Courtesy)
By RALPH BARTHOLDT
Staff Writer
COEUR d’ALENE — The dust in places, if you’re measuring, is 6 inches deep.
It is the squeaky flour dust that heavy equipment makes on dirt in the heat of summer. Step in it, and it’s over your shoes.
Richie Conklin and his crew of skateboarders aren’t measuring, though. They know the skateboard park they’re building at the Four Corners west of Memorial Field will cover 14,000 square feet.
“It will be 17,000 with the green space,” Conklin said Tuesday.
Lean, with blue eyes in a dusty face covered by a broad brim hat, Conklin is the 25-year-old foreman for Evergreen Skateparks, hired to build Coeur d’Alene’s latest piece of concrete art.
His seven-person crew is a hodgepodge of boarders from all over who not only skate on the parks they build, but help design the flowing curves and loops they construct with rebar and air-filled concrete smoothed to a glossy perfection.
“Being a skateboarder is a prerequisite,” said Conklin, who five years ago while visiting relatives in Detroit joined the construction firm that concentrates on building skateparks all over the West.
“I didn’t know anything about construction,” he said.
He helped design the Coeur d’Alene park that he said should be completed in time for a grand opening in October.
Based in Portland, Evergreen has moved some operations to Stevensville, Mont., in part because of the many contracts in the region including at Box Elder, Stevensville and Livingston in Montana, at Douglas, Wyo., and Frisco, Colo., this year alone.
“This is a really niche thing,” Conklin said. “It’s kind of a combination between sculpting and construction.”
His crew members don’t mind the dust or the heat because they’re sculpting a skatepark using their experience, their sense of art and innovation joined with shovel and iron work.
Groundbreaking began a month ago. Work on the $700,000-plus skateboard park is right around halfway completed. The heavy equipment has been mostly moved out, and the crew is building forms, laying rebar and blowing down concrete, like the sweeping curves already in place that reflect sunlight like ice on a bobsled course.
City parks director Bill Greenwood likes what he sees.
“They have been easy to work with, and they’re doing a nice job,” Greenwood said.
Jason Olsen of the North Idaho Skateboard Association is ecstatic.
“They are nothing but top notch,” said Olsen, who hopes to turn the park into a venue for family activities. “It’s going to be unreal.”
The park’s grand opening is set for Oct. 6.