Lansdale Borough is ready to re-bid the long-delayed Fourth Street Skate Park project.
The borough Parks and Recreation Committee voted Wednesday to send a bidding package to Borough Council for its approval at the Aug. 21 business meeting. Borough engineers would have the full specifications ready the next day, and with 30 days allowed for advertising and bidding, said committee chair Mary Fuller, "The goal would be to award a contract in October.”
If approved, this would be the third attempt to solicit bids for Lansdale's skate park, which has been discussed in various forms for more than five years. The most recent round of bidding, last November, brought only West Coast bidders, at prices well above what the borough expected or was willing to pay.
In February, borough officials estimated the then-current cost of the project at about $700,000. Council sent the project to borough engineering firm Remington Vernick to find ways to shave the price tag. The re-engineered plans uncovered savings of about $80,000, Parks & Rec Director Karl Lukens said Wednesday.
The changes include:
• Scaling back the landscaping, and particularly the stormwater management portion of the project, which the firm felt was overengineered to meet required standards.
• Splitting the contract into separate park construction and landscaping pieces, to avoid added costs of subcontracting.
• And raising the elevation of the concrete park itself by a few inches, saving excavation costs.
Some three dozen skateboard enthusiasts turned out at Wednesday’s committee meeting to hear news of the changes and reaffirm their enthusiasm for the project. And Fuller took pains to emphasize to them that none of the alterations affect the design of the park or its features.
"Nothing in the new bids affects the skate park we all looked at and approved – a thousand years ago, it feels like,” she said. "The design of the skate park will remain the same.”
Funding includes $220,000 in state grants, a matching amount from the Lansdale Parking Authority’s sale of the Madison Lot (where developers had originally intended to locate the skate park), and an existing appropriation from the borough’s capital projects budget earmarked to make up any difference.
And the skateboard community represented at the committee meeting seemed more than willing to step up to help raise funds if needed. "The local music scene is very vibrant right now,” Dan Pancoast, 32, of Lansdale, said after the meeting, suggesting fundraising shows and events. "There are a lot of local bands that are doing well, and at the local venue the Underground, there’s an event pretty much every night of the week. Anything we can do to further the skate park’s progress, we’re all for it.”
Pancoast said he had worried that the borough felt community support may be waning. "I felt guilty because the last meeting I was at before tonight was when they approved the skate park, they talked about groundbreaking, and after that, I didn’t really come back. I maybe shot myself in the foot.”
When he heard about the Wednesday meeting, "I posted on social media along with a lot of my friends,” Pancoast said. "That’s kind of what brought the crowd out, a collective effort. I’m glad that everyone’s here to speak.”
Fuller encouraged the skateboarders to return for the full council’s business meeting in two weeks. "I really appreciate you guys coming out as a community and showing support for this project,” she said. "Hopefully it sends a message to the borough and remaining council members that this project is important to the community, that there is a need for it and that you guys want it done.”
The Lansdale Borough Council’s monthly business meeting will be Wednesday, Aug. 21 at 7 p.m. at Borough Hall.
