ATHOL — The possibility of installing a moveable skate park in downtown Athol was a topic of discussion at the Nov. 9 meeting of the meeting of the town’s Downtown Vitality Committee. Committee Chair Mary Holtorf said she has received generally positive response to the possibility of placing the park on the current site of the parking deck in the municipal parking lot off of Exchange Street.
“I did talk to (Assistant DPW Director) Paul Raskevitz about getting the deck removed as quickly as possible,” she said, “and, hopefully, the Capital Planning Committee will put it on the spring Town Meeting agenda.
“But, so far, the response to having a skate park there has been overwhelmingly positive. I started a couple of weeks ago, just putting a post up on one of the local Facebook groups. I was really surprised because sometimes what you get back on Facebook can be a little rough. But it was overwhelmingly positive. Even people that had questions or expressed concerns about vandalism and that sort of thing, were generally positive.”
Athol Planning and Development Director Eric Smith explained that the concept is for the installation of a mobile park.
“So, it’ll be a temporary structure you can bring in by trailer,” he said, “and maybe it can be stored in the trailer during the wintertime to keep it safe and dry. But it’s a temporary skate park concept.”
“There are different options,” said Holtorf, “but I think that would be the best fit. And I’m hoping this will evolve because I also talked to Brian Hall at the Open Space and Recreation meeting, so I’m hoping that maybe they’ll look at some of the options and maybe put together a group of parents and kids to work on it.”
Holtorf then recalled a July meeting with Heather Bialecki-Canning of the North Quabbin Community Coatition.
“She said,” Holtorf continued, “that they have a group of youth that meet on a regular basis. So, that may be somebody we want to touch base with, when we get a little farther along, with the potential to do the park.”
Holtorf said she also spoke to Athol YMCA Executive Director Heather Butler “about the potential to have a small playground area there as well. So, there’d be more activity and maybe a little more oversight to maybe mediate any issues with kids.
“She was quite interested,” Holtorf said, “because right now, of course, they have to take all the kids across the street to that little playground behind the Starrett Memorial Church. She said her office window looks out over Main Street, and her heart stops for a moment every time she watches the kids cross the street.
“So, I think there’s room there for both activities.”
Holtorf said the town could apply for a T-Mobile Hometown Grant to help pay for the project. T-Mobile is awarding as much as $50,000 to up to 100 towns a year for projects aimed at revitalizing each community.
“It’s a ‘rolling grant,’ and this is the perfect project,” she said. “It fits all the criteria. But we have to have a little bit more of a plan to go along with the grant. So, I’m hoping that over the next month we can pull something together and apply for the grant in the next quarter.
“If it’s approved at spring Town Meeting, the parking deck won’t come down until the next fiscal year, which would be July. Depending on what has to be done to secure the site once the deck is gone, it’s possible that we could have this skate park and some playground by next fall. That may be optimistic, but that might happen.
“Also, as part of the grant, we can look into having the retaining wall that’s going to be left there — to get some artwork on it. That might take a little longer to get done, but it could all be part of the grant.”
As the discussion wound down, the hope was expressed that a skate park could provide a recreational opportunity to Athol’s youngsters while also addressing other issues.
“I’ve heard there have been some new issues over at Silver Lake Park,” she said. “So, I think if we can get a little downtown park maybe the kids will stay there, and maybe with a little bit more supervision they’ll hopefully be a little better behaved. Apparently, they trashed the swings over at the park.”
Board member Steve Wills said it was the swings at Fish Park that had been vandalized.
“The point is,” said Holtorf, “that they obviously don’t have enough to do and enough, sort of, visibility.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com