ATHOL – At the Select Board meeting last Tuesday, Planning and Development Director Eric Smith and Athol resident Stephen Paige presented a proposal for the creation of a skate park off Lincoln Avenue.
The plan presented to the board included a playground and splash park, in addition to a facility for skateboarders. The overall park would occupy about 10,000 square feet on a parcel of town-owned land overlooking the northwest corner of Silver Lake Park.
“I took a look at 158 town-owned properties,” Smith told the board. “A lot of them are in conservation or already developed – like Town Hall, library, Police Department – and it really comes down to just a handful of properties that had any kind of potential.”
Smith said that after discussion, the Open Space and Recreation Commission [OSRC] recommended the site “on the upper side of Silver Lake Park off of Lincoln Avenue. We haven’t done any outreach to the neighborhood, but we thought we’d present this to the Select Board to see what your thoughts are and take it from there.”
Board member Mitch Grosky, who also sits on the OSRC, said, “We considered a number of other sites, but for various reasons they weren’t appropriate. They were either too small or they were brownfields or they were owned by somebody else. The attraction to this site was that it is large and could incorporate additional recreation; including the splash park, which is something people have requested during discussions of late, as well as the playground. So, it seems like a good site, but of course we want to get community input before we go any further on this.”
Grosky pointed out that the subject of a skate park had been on several Select Board and OSRC agendas in recent months.
“People are talking about noise level and things like that,” Paige said. “but people are using that field already. It’s not a motocross track, it’s nothing with engines. It’s not any different than if it was a playground. It’s plenty of real estate right in the middle of the neighborhood, so I don’t see noise being a huge problem.”
“You are raising money to build this for the town,” said board member Marc Maxwell. “So, this is not going to cost the town anything other than land.”
“A lot of people are thinking this will affect the taxpayers, but that’s not the case,” Paige responded. “We’re looking to raise money.”
Page told the Athol Daily News that fundraising efforts are not yet underway.
“I want to make sure we definitely have a location for the park with the town’s approval,” he said.
He said several local businesses have already expressed support for the proposal. Once formal approval has been granted, Paige said he would likely seek some funding through the Tony Hawk Skatepark Project.
At the suggestion of the Select Board, Smith said the public would be invited to the Oct. 27 meeting of the OSRC. The board also expressed its support for the concept of a skate park at the proposed site, pending public feedback.