Plans for a new skatepark to be built in Tecumseh were on display at an open house Thursday at the town's arena.
The park, designed by New Line Skateparks, features a lot of the everyday surfaces kids skateboard on — usually illegally.
"It has street skating elements, such as your stairs, your handrails and your ledges. It also has ramp elements, such as your four-foot high mini-ramp and some more of the kind of round wall transition ramps," said Bill Gurney of New Line Skateparks.
A few minor suggestions for changes were made at the open house, but overall, the park was hit to young and old.
"It's quite exciting, actually," said Paul Anthony, the town's director of recreation. "It's a design I haven't really seen before. They came up with some new concepts and some real good ideas and the youth that were here were very excited to see this design."
Maria McCann of the Tecumseh Skatepark Committee is leading the way in getting a new skateboard park in Tecumseh, even though she has mixed feelings about skateboarding.
"Kids want to skateboard anyways and right now what they're doing is skateboarding in the driveway," McCann said. "And we've had a lot of injuries, scrapes. I know there are days when I've actually gone in the house because I couldn't watch because I'm too scared."
Skateboarder Andrew Fricky call the park "perfect."
"It’s better than anything we have around here. It's right on par with some of the best in the province," said Fricky, who has skated in London and Toronto. "It’s like a street spot you see kids skating at it, where they’re not supposed to."
The town is willing to spend up to $120,000 on the $300,000 project. The rest will be raised by a community policing committee.
McCann's kids started fundraising during the summer. They held a lemonade sale and raised $85.
The park's designer is expected to suggest a short list of locations for the skate park.
The committee, with support from the OPP, wants it located between the police headquarters and the arena.
"We're hoping that will help us avoid graffiti, drug use, alcohol. We're hoping that the kids will go there and not have to worry about those issues," McCann said.
Final design will be presented to Tecumseh council by early December.
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