March 2013 - Parks & Recreation - 44

MAKEOVER MAGIC

Poplar Bluff, Missouri

Poplar Bluff Skate Plaza

hen a new 19,000-squarefoot skate plaza opened in
Poplar Bluff, Missouri, last
July, it had been 10 years in the making.
Skateboarders had asked Clark Allen, director of Poplar Bluff 's Parks
and Recreation Department, for a
dedicated skate park for more than
a decade. In addition, " these kids
weren't the kids we typically see in
organized sports programs, " Allen
says, " so we knew there was an underserved group of youth out there. "
Through research, Allen learned
that the street-skating culture preferred an urban environment. " It was
already the place that they were practicing their craft: on curbs and ledges,
in front of post offices and libraries,
and in places where there were ramps
and stairs, " Allen says.
To capture an urban feel, Allen began to scout sites downtown, which
was once a vibrant center of commerce and community but now features banks, government buildings,
and social-service agencies. Planners
hoped a new plaza would help revitalize the city and bring back the former
glory of shops and downtown life.

Parks & Recreation

" We knew if we built the right kind
of facility, we would not only get the
kids, we would get their parents and
generate interest from outside the
community, " explains Allen, who
hoped shops and restaurants would
open in turn. A central downtown
location would also make it easy for
kids from all over town to get there by
foot, bike, or skateboard.
They settled on a city-owned urban
plot that had been many things in the
past: a city jail in the early 1900s, the
city hall until the late 1960s, and most
recently, a vacant lot. In addition, it
had been unappealing for other proj-

| MARCH 2013 | WWW.NRPA.ORG

Agency head: Clark E. Allen,
Director
Population: 17,023
Annual budget: $1.5 million
Year agency founded: 1951
Number of parks overseen: 11
(includes golf course)
ects because the basement of the razed
building left a below-grade surface.
To fund the new plaza, Poplar Bluff
received a grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health's Healthy
and Active Communities initiative,
which sought to address youth and
childhood obesity and fitness. The
$250,000 grant paid for the lion's
share of the $450,000 project, with
the remainder coming from the parks
department and donations.
To make the project run smoothly,
Poplar Bluff park officials searched for
a design firm with enough experience
to anticipate potential pitfalls during
construction that could put the project
over budget. In the end, the city selected Action Sports Design, now Stantec.
Challenges to the project included
mitigating an empty underground petroleum storage tank left from an earlier era. But Allen found that getting approvals from various departments was
easy: " We'd been working on this long
enough that we had pretty good buy-in
from the community and the Missouri
Foundation for Health, " Allen says.
Allen and his team researched and
studied other successful skate plazas to
design a park that skaters would use.
Designers made sure angles, elements,
and general flow were technically alluring to skaters of all levels-from
pro-level to amateur skaters. " We tried
to build something that was attractive,
had a lot of art and color in it, and
looked like an urban plaza, " Allen says.
In addition, they wanted to preserve
the local historic connection. Designers left original stonework, stucco, and
brick walls-complete with some of
the original jail cell bars. " There's a
coolness factor to this spot, " Allen says.

March 2013 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2013 - Parks & Recreation