In 1999, Windham opened a wooden skate park as a joint
effort with the police department and the recreation department. This park was
enjoyed by skaters for many years. By 2016, the park had to be shut down because
of disrepair.
What followed was a plan to replace the skate park as part
of a larger community park which would also include basketball and volleyball
courts and walking paths. Recently, the new skate park opened on Gray Road near
the Public Safety building.
Last year, skaters attended the Windham Community Skate
Park public meeting at Windham Town Hall to discuss the design of a new skate
park. Windham
resident, skater and individual involved with the process from the beginning,
Matthew Howe was in attendance.
“From the user’s perspective the old skatepark was fully functional
but from the perspective of a structural engineer it just was unsafe and had to
go,” observed Howe.
Howe went on to say that the skatepark design meeting started by
the skaters talking about Windham Skatepark history as well as Mackenzie
MacVane.
As stated in a previous Windham Eagle article, ‘MacVane
of Windham died at the age of 13 in an accident at El Weir Dam. He left a
memorable mark on his friends. He was a member of the Dare to Adventure
Program, a community program supervised by School Resource Officer, Matthew
Cyr. “He was perhaps one of the most positive people a person could meet,” Cyr
said in an email interview.’
Present at the public meeting was an American Ramp Company
representative who gave the skaters a questionnaire so everyone had input on
the new skatepark. “The process made me very happy and seemed solid; left me
feeling excited for the future,” said Howe.
The skate park is a project headed by the Parks and
Recreation Department in conjunction with the Parks and Recreation Advisory
Committee. “When that park needed to come down, it was time to start fresh. The
concrete park with that plaza style skating is kind of the trend and what
people are interested in now. We decided that’s the direction we should head,” explained
Linda Brooks, Windham Parks and Recreation Director.
“We ended up seeking land and water conservation funds,
to be able to do the project,” stated Brooks. “That requires a match by the
town; basically it’s 48% the federal government and 52% the town. We had to put
the project out to bid, that’s a requirement.”
The bid estimate came in at $170,000 for the skate park.
Brooks explained that constructing the community park would be done in phases
and phase one was getting the skaters skating again. So far, they are on
budget.
“Our hope is that we can get an extension of time for the
grant process...[a]state contact indicated we could likely apply for an
extension of grant funding and time and continue getting some more work done; in
the process of working toward that end,” added Brooks.
“Additionally, we will continue to budget out through the
capital improvement plan, the use of impact fees that get distributed to the
department for development and expansion of recreational facilities. As the
funding becomes available, we will continue to work on subsequent phases of the
project.”
BMX biker Logan Tripp, 19, a Direct Support Professional
and Certified Residential Medication Aide from Oxford Hills, drove 45 minutes
to get to the new skate park.“A couple of my buddies on Instagram said, ‘come
and shred the park’. I used to shred it back in the day, when it was wood.
Pretty decent park now, I like it.”
Howe
has been to the skate park every day since it opened and said, “once you skate
there, you’ll never want to leave.”
“We know it was hard, the park appeared ready to be
skated on two weeks prior to us saying ‘yep it’s open now,’ so we appreciate
the skater’s patience. We’re happy we were able to get that logo back up to
honor McKenzie MacVane.”
“We’re looking forward to doing a grand opening next
spring,” concluded Brooks.
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