By Vita Duva
HIGHLANDS – Highlands has skateboarding on the brain.
For some, redesigning the Highlands Snug Harbor Skate Park may have seemed like a distant dream, but in collaboration with Spohn Ranch Skateparks, a skate park design-build firm based in Los Angeles, California, the borough’s long-anticipated project has finally hit the ground running. Or rolling.
During a special council meeting Tuesday, Jan. 25, Spohn Ranch Skatepark developer Jason Baldessari revealed an updated design for the new skate park based on community feedback which had been provided in a design session held in December.
“I want to make this park something that you are all going to be very happy with, whether that is on the city-side or the user-side,” Baldessari explained to the audience as he kicked off his presentation. “Like I said in the last session, I have thick skin – I am an Italian from New Jersey – so please do not hesitate to tell me what you are thinking.”
From the start of the project, the community was adamant that the new skate park design would be inclusive of skateboarders of varying skill levels and abilities. And while the borough has glided more in the direction of transition skateboarding recently, the new design does not completely stray away from street or plaza-style.
One of the focal points in the December session was the hope to design something unique to Highlands. Baldessari presented just that on Tuesday evening – spearheading a progressive skate park design that boasts a big H-feature, slappy curbs, quarter pipes and a clamshell bowl, to name just a few of the many skateboarding highlights that are to come.
“The park looks unreal,” Highlands resident, Nathanael Burel said in response to the reveal. “Jason, I think you did a great job. We threw a lot at you in the last design session and you have delivered. It has nice lines where you can connect to a few parts of the park and caters to both young and progressive skaters.”
Another Highlands resident, Samantha McCarthy, echoed similar sentiments: “I am just blown away. I am personally not a skateboarder, but I have been in and around the industry. My kids are into (skateboarding), so I am into it.” McCarthy continued, “I would have never imagined these plans being developed from that meeting I was at in December with everyone’s input. It is fantastic.”
While both borough council and community members in attendance Tuesday night continued to commend the new plans, some also offered up last-minute tweaks to the design.
Highlands skateboarder Christian Richards suggested adding a 45-degree angle to the back of the clamshell bowl, for both added skating space and as another challenging obstacle to the course.
“Overall, I think the design looks awesome. It checks the boxes that everyone was talking about at our last meeting,” Richards confirmed.
He went on to further discuss the possibility of widening both sides of the H-feature quarter pipe from 4 feet to 5 feet in order for skateboarders to have the ability to realistically transfer from one side to the other.
“The funny thing is – for us as designers – we work on a concept for three or four days and it kind of gets baked into your brain,” Baldessari said in response to Richards’ elevated suggestions. “And for someone who has not seen it before, like Christian, he just came up with ideas that I’m bummed I did not think of myself.”
Following the success of Tuesday night’s meeting, the borough decided to take additional comments on the skate park design from community members until Wednesday, Feb. 2. The opportunity allowed those with interest to spend some more time with the design and really have a chance to think it through. Final drawings are now in the works and renderings will be circulated among the public at a later date.
While the skate park has remained closed for over a year now, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program recently awarded Highlands a combination grant-loan totaling nearly $600,000. According to the borough, the back- ing from the program will fully fund the cost of the skate park.
In addition to this project, the borough also plans to reboot the remaining sections of the Snug Harbor Park area – mainly the tennis court and basketball courts. The tennis court will have a pickleball inlay for more versatility. Other upgrades Highlands has planned for the park include new lighting, picnic tables, parking lot striping and new playground equipment in front of the community center.
“The (skate park) plans are amazing. It really does bring a great combination of street and transitional elements to the park. If I were to use one word to describe it, I would say it is sleek,” Highlands Mayor Carolyn Broullon told The Two River Times. “This is going to be the pièce de résistance on top of all those other upgrades that we are doing to the park area.”
This article originally appeared in the Feb. 3-9, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
