Buffer zone of trees and grasses considered
LANSDALE » With fall now here and winter fast approaching, borough officials are already planning what Lansdale’s skate park could look like in 2021.
Council members heard an update Wednesday night on several more finishing touches in the works, and one that may not be ready until next year.
“If you’ve been by the skate park lately, we just finished installing some blue-stone pavers in different areas, just off of the
skate park,” said Parks and Recreation Director Karl Lukens.
“They’re areas that were trampled pretty heavily, entry points to the skate park. The blue-stone, we were able to relocate from Memorial Park, in an area that wasn’t being used at all, it was just steps to nowhere,” he said.
Several years of public talks, debate, and bid attempts throughout the 2010s finally resulted in the borough’s skate park opening in late July adjacent to Fourth Street Park. In mid-August council unanimously named it after late Parks and Recreat ion Direc t or C a rl Saldutti, and in September authorized a needed repair to fix a drainage problem below the park’s main skate bowl.
On Oct. 7 Lukens gave council’s parks and recreation committee an update on changes over the past month, including the addition of those pavers, meant to cover muddy areas around the park edges and provide extra space for social distancing.
“That allows queuing, while people are waiting to skate. They’re not going to just stand on dirt and dust, and it’ll help the skate park itself,” he said.
“The users have actually brought a broom over, to try and keep some of the dirt out of there. Hopefully they’ll use those (paver) areas, and help some grass grow around it, and it’ll help the entire look of the park,” he said.
Early versions of the skate park design included a naturalized buffer surrounding it with trees, but that buffer was removed during cost-cutting revisions, and the park is currently largely surrounded by muddy grass covered in straw. Lukens told the committee Oct. 5 that he and borough code staff have already begun talks on how to purchase trees to be planted in those areas, possibly using developer funds contributed when trees are removed from projects elsewhere in the borough.
“I would certainly look to use that as much as possible. We have several open space areas that could be reforested a little as well,” he said.
Early estimates are that planting trees around the skate park could cost roughly $6,000 to $7,000 and would likely include a mix of types.
“We’re looking at approximately 21 evergreens, probably around 16 shade trees, and another six or seven flowering trees, depending on how the prices come in,” he said.
“If they come in smaller, we’ll get more. We have plenty of room where we can add more,” Lukens said.
Parks department staff have also transplanted some tall grass from near the front entrance to the Fourth Street pool closer to the skate park, to provide extra buffering between the skate area and the Williamson Court townhouses just to the west.
“Right now it’s only six inches tall, because you cut it before you transplant it, but the hope for that is that it’ll help stop some additional sound that would leak out of the skate park in that direction,” Lukens said.
“We’ll look to, every year, keep splitting those grasses, because they keep growing and getting thicker and are real easy to transplant. We’ll use them as fencing, or sound barriers, whatever we need to, but next year we’ll have twice as many, and split the ones at the front of the pool building again, and the ones we just planted,” he said.
One other aspect of the skate park could also use input, Lukens added.
“I think it ’s time we should probably start figuring out what type of signage we want for next spring, when we rename the skate park,” he said.
“I would ask that you start generating some ideas, or taking pictures of other signs you come by to see what you think might be appropriate,” he said.
Lukens said he saw a sign at a park in nearby Worcester Township that could serve as a model, and said anyone with feedback can contact parks staff or council members with suggestions. Committee chairwoman Mary Fuller suggested contacting skate park designer Jesse Clayton for his input, and said details will be finalized closer to spring on the actual public naming ceremony.
“We’ll just do the signage and see how things continue to shake out with this pandemic, before we start thinking naming ceremony,” she said.
Lansdale’s borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on Oct. 21; for more information visit www.Lansdale. org.