“I think it (a skatepark) would be a great addition to the New Castle parks system,” Zook said. “I think they’d be ahead of the curve.”

Zook said the Anderson Skateboard Plaza is modeled after the ‘plaza-style’ park in Dayton, Ohio. The all-concrete surface offers rails, stairs, open flat surfaces and ramps for skateboarders. The park is near city tennis courts and are lighted overnight.

The City of Richmond installed a skateboard park in Glen Miller Park in the early to mid-1990s, said Richmond Park Superintendent Bill Thistlethwaite.

“It’s been very successful,” Thistlethwaite said. “There is a need for those in parks.”

Community groups in Richmond organize local tournaments at the skatepark. Thistlethwaite said the city also incorporates the skatepark in the annual City Fit event, a festival devoted to health, wellness and better living. When the park was first built, the city noticed graffiti popping up at the skatepark. Thistlethwaite said the community solved the problem by allowing skaters to paint murals on the concrete fixtures as part of an organized event.

“Skateboarders kind of had a bad rap, but I think folks are starting to come around,” Thistlethwaite said.

The advocacy and educational non-profit group Skaters for Public Skateparks (SPS) researched the safety and durability of construction designs. In the article ‘Just Say NO To Modular Skateparks,’ SPS highlighted that steel or wooden ramps bolted to an unused parking lot can create dangerous situations for skateboards. Loose boards, cracked fiberglass, exposed bolts and rusted steel need to be repaired or replaced immediately to prevent serious injury.

Several communities that installed steel ramps and tunnels at their parks discovered that skateboard wheels created a lot of noise pollution on the metal surfaces. The Skate Park Association International (SPAI) looked at noise concerns for neighborhoods around skateparks. The SPAI found that concrete obstacles created the lowest noise levels and steel the highest. While noise pollution becomes negligible to surrounding neighborhoods after about 100 feet, noise within the park can reach damaging levels when multiple skaters are using steel equipment.

“Cities worry a lot about how the noise will affect the neighbors but we might need to look at how it will affect the users,” the SPAI study concluded.

Maintenance costs can also strain an already tight city budget. New Castle officials and skaters saw this firsthand when modular wooden ramps were erected in Osborne Park. Thistlethwaite said maintenance has been minimal at the permanent concrete park in Richmond. Since skateboarders do not typically skate in icy conditions, the city does not spread salt on the skating surfaces during the winter. This means the concrete needs less maintenance and repair work than Richmond sidewalks and roads.

Zook added that BMX bikers may want to use the skatepark as well. Rails and grinding angles need to have strong steel supports to withstand the extra weight, he said.

“You don’t want wooden (ramps),” Zook said.

Both Zook and Thistlethwaite mentioned that grassroots community involvement is essential for getting skatepark projects off the ground.

“It always helps to have involvement from the folks in the community who are going to use it,” Thistlethwaite said.

The New Castle Parks Board wants local skateboarders and supporters to be involved with the process as the city moves forward with the idea. Skatepark advocates can add to the conversation during parks board meetings. The next New Castle Parks Board meeting is 5:30 p.m. Dec. 7 in the city council chambers on the second floor of city hall, 227 N. Main St.