las cruces skate park improvement effort advances

An ongoing movement to improve the popular and much-used Las Cruces Skate Park may be spurred by a study showing exactly how much it will cost to take on such work.

Members of the Las Cruces City Council are expected to soon decide on contracting out for what will essentially be a feasibility study looking at how much upgrading work the park currently needs and what the final price tag will be.

Earlier this year, public testimony was received by council members indicating that while the park, located at 151 N. Walnut Street, was considered advanced at the time of its opening in 1998, it has aged simply due to use.

Work on the new study, if approved by the council, will be taken on by the Albuquerque-based Morrow Reardon Wilkinson and Miller Landscape Architecture firm.

City officials say the study must be completed by the end of the year in order for the project to be included as part of Las Cruces’ 2020 capital improvement request list.

Projects making that list can be funded through both local and state sources.
 
An online petition calling for the construction of an entirely new skate park has so far attracted more than 1,900 signatures. That petition on the Change.Org website claims that the park’s “transitions are completely messed up and parts of the park are sinking.”

By Garry Boulard

---