Coming off the heels of a successful fundraiser last month, the Ann Arbor Skatepark is now over a critical hill. The latest $18,000 raised gets the nonprofit
Friends of the Ann Arbor Skatepark to the six-figure mark in total funding thus far – and the next stage.
"We reached a point where it's a milestone for us because it allows us to put forward a [request for proposal] for a design of the project," says Scott Rosencrans, project liasion for the Ann Arbor Skatepark.
The Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation Commission has pledged $400,000 towards the project if the Friends of the Ann Arbor Skatepark can match that amount. The nonprofit partnered with the city of Ann Arbor on an application for a $300,000 grant from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund, the outcome of which should be known sometime in December, Rosencrans says.
The projected cost to build the all-concrete skatepark is between $800,000 and $900,000.
"What our nonprofit brought to the table was that it would also include a maintenance endowment to cover all of the maintenance costs of the project so that taxpayers of Ann Arbor wouldn't be on the hook for that," he says. Ten percent of every donation goes into that fund, which at this point already has about two years' worth of money for upkeep.
The city of Ann Arbor has donated land for the facility in the northwest corner of Veterans Memorial Park. It will be located next to a hardball field and in a grove of mature trees, to be left intact.
There are between 5-7,000 skateboarders in Washtenaw County, says Rosencrans. Every year, 20 million kids get into sports in the U.S., but 70 percent drop out by the age of 13.
However, Rosencrans says, "Kids will stick with skateboarding into adulthood. It's just that they're looking for something to do that doesn't have a numeric value attached to their performance. They just want to be creative and express."
Source: Scott Rosencrans, project liasion for the Ann Arbor Skatepark
Writer: Tanya Muzumdar
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