Corte Madera skate park renovation plan advances
The Corte Madera Parks and Recreation Commission voted unanimously this week to support a proposal to renovate the town’s skate park.
With the approval by the commission on Monday, officials plan to ask the Town Council for its blessing to move forward with the project at Corte Madera Town Park.
The project was proposed in partnership with the Scotty Lapp Foundation, a nonprofit started in the memory a former Tiburon teen who was a skateboarding enthusiast. He died in a ski collision last year in the Lake Tahoe area.
“I’ve loved every component of interacting with the foundation,” said Emily Charley, vice chair of the commission.
“I love it. I’m in support of it. I think they’re very responsive,” Charley said. “And I think this is, for me, a very easy yes.”
Lapp’s family has been honoring his life by making skateboarding, skiing and snowboarding more accessible to youths. The foundation has been working toward a revamp of the skate park at Corte Madera Town Park.
The nonprofit foundation is raising funds for the project through its website, scottylapp.org. The hope is that construction will begin this fall for a spring opening of the site.
“The Corte Madera skate park is a treasured part of Town Park,” said Tim Barry, the parks and recreation director. “Every day you can see people of all ages using the facility.”
The skate park was last renovated in 2017 for about $115,000, Barry said. It is about 3,700 square feet with series of quarter-pipes, banks, rails and other ramps and obstacles. The ramps are made of metal and wood, which make a loud cracking sound when tricks are performed on them.
The Lapps’ proposal would upgrade the park to concrete to help soften the sound, mitigating noise complaints from nearby neighbors.
Barry said a town survey on the project netted 141 responses, with a majority of respondents voicing support for a concrete park with more challenging features and an overall upgrade.
The Scotty Lapp Foundation conducted a survey of its own, collecting 115 responses from young adults and teens who live in central and southern Marin. The survey asked more specific questions about the types of features skaters wanted to see, with ledges, rails and stairs as some of the most desired.
Barry said if the council gives its blessing on the project, then staff could move forward with the design. Staff would plan community workshops to get into more specifics.
“We’re really excited about this project,” Amy Lapp, Lapp’s mother, told the commission on Monday. “It means a lot to a lot of people, especially a lot of Scotty’s friends.”
The presentation to Town Council is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 19.