Madison Skate Park Finds New Home at Surf Club
After the skate park located behind the Madison Arts Barn was taken down on Oct. 5 to make way for a new emergency communications tower, local officials worked to find a new home for the park. After considering a few locations, town officials settled on the Surf Club with the hope of having the park back up and running by late spring 2017.
At a Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting on Nov. 28, the board approved a $48,598 special appropriation request from the Beach & Recreation Department for the relocation of the skate park. Beach & Recreation Director Scot Erskine said the request covers the cost to excavate and pave an area of the Surf Club for the park.
Erskine said the park will be installed on the grass parking lot near the horseshoe pits and bocce courts and will be fenced in. He said it is a nice location and that he hopes it will lead to more use at the skate park.
He said the park’s former location led to it being under-utilized. “Kids were going to Academy [School] and I think with the relocation of the park being where most of the kids are during the summer, I think it would get a heavier use and being monitored until 11 p.m. at night it would give them an outlet.”
While the park had to be moved for the new communications tower, which is part of an infrastructure upgrade designed to improve radio signal across the town, Friends of Madison Youth (FOMY), which had donated the skate park equipment, had been considering moving the park for some time, according to Director of Youth & Family Services Scott Cochran.
“FOMY had been thinking about what they could do for the skate park for quite some time,” he said. “It was behind the building and used by smaller and smaller groups of kids, so this move was really necessitated by the fact that the tower had to go up, but I think the FOMY would tell you they had been struggling with the skate park for a while.”
The special appropriation is conditioned upon the official donation of the skate park equipment by FOMY, but First Selectmen Tom Banisch said it is just a matter of paperwork at this point.
“In order for the town to accept the gift, including the liability and all of that, they have to make a formal donation to the town,” he said.
Overall, Erskine said moving the park will be a positive for the town.
“The kids will come out and this is something to add to the Surf Club,” he said.