Vernon Hills adding skate park designed and built by skateboarders
Skateboarders will be able to hone their skills and up their games at a new facility coming this summer to Vernon Hills.
The Vernon Hills Park District this week hired Evergreen Skateparks, a design/build firm from Portland, Oregon, to replace the existing skate park east of the Sullivan Community Center, 635 N. Aspen Drive.
Evergreen previously was hired from among several firms to design the skate park. At $304,653, the firm's bid was the lowest of six companies vying to build the park.
Park district patrons in early November viewed conceptual designs and offered suggestions. The result, approved by the park board Nov. 21, incorporates features such as a radiuses pocket with pumpable hips, tight radius quarter pipe and pump bumps - in essence a variety of bowls, dips, curves and jumps.
Evergreen has built hundreds of parks and is lauded in testimonials for its designs and features, including a shoutout from Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament.
"We've seen this vendor's work (and) they do a good job," said Jeff Fougerousse, the park district's executive director. "The owner and employees are skateboarders."
Added motivation is that one of the owners is originally from Chicago and his sister and three kids live in Vernon Hills, according to the company. It is said to be the first 100% skateboarder design/build project in the Chicago area.
The new park will be made of concrete, an upgrade from the existing wood and steel features. An upgrade with new equipment had been planned for 2024.
But that was accelerated with the construction by Hawthorn Elementary District 73 of the $13.5 million Hawthorn School for Young Learners, which will be connected to the Sullivan Center.
The area is a center of public activities including District 73 schools, park district facilities and the Aspen Drive Library, which is on property donated by the village.
The village agreed to waive the 2019 installment of a loan to the park district as an $84,000 contribution to the skate park. District 73 is contributing $80,000.
Work is expected to start in March and take about three months, Fougerousse said. The new facility will allow for 20 skaters at a time, compared to about a dozen now. It's also designed to be used by scooters.
About 10 concrete barriers around the facility will become a community art project to be painted by members of the Vernon Hills High School art club.
The art should depict movement or park-related activities, but each will be one of a kind, Fougerousse added.
"They can just go to town," he said of the artists.