◆ With the help of an angel donor, Alpine adds to their skateboarding area.
By Breanna Call
SVI Media
Earlier this month, construction started on the Alpine Sports Park. Currently, there are baseball fields, horseshoe pits, a pump track for biking, an ice-skating rink, and a skatepark. Now, the skateboarding area will be expanded to add a skate bowl.
Jeremy Larsen, Alpine town councilman and founder of Alpine Trails and Pathways, states that the skate bowl is designed to “keep people going for hours. . . . It’s for beginners to experts so everybody can get something out of it.” He also adds that they will “expand on the street scene of the original park to try and make it get a little better flow.”
The original skateboarding section of the park was built in 2009. Larsen says, “It’s a nice little skatepark but [with] the kids these days, the learning curve is so accelerated in sports like this that you can easily find yourself kind of bored with it.” Expanding the park has been on Larsen’s mind for some time. “The kids, for a number of years, have been asking to expand on the skatepark, and that was kind of one thing I was working on but . . . there wasn’t any money to do it. However, it was never off the list.”
Luckily, this year brought new opportunity. Larsen explains, “We essentially had what they call a donor angel just come through and say, ‘Look let’s get it done. I want it done and want the kids smiling and happy.’” Alpine Trails and Pathways was also able to donate money to the cause, and with both donations, expanding the skatepark of the park will finally be a reality.
Larsen was able to collaborate with Dreamland Skateparks, a company that coordinates with other organizations to construct skateparks with donated labor and materials. Normally, it is almost impossible to get on Dreamland Skateparks’s schedule, but with an unexpected cancellation, they were able to take on the skatepark expansion in Alpine.
Larsen says, “I’m just looking to make kids happy. That means kids big and small, because I know a lot of adults that are really looking forward to this.” Construction is expected to be finished on June 10, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held on June 18. Come check out and enjoy the new addition!
