Twiggs Park Picked As Site For Permanent Evanston Skate Park

EVANSTON, IL — City staff have selected Twiggs Park as the best location for a permanent skate park in Evanston, city staff told alderpeople Monday.

The site emerged as the favorite following an online survey and two public meetings this spring, according to Lara Biggs, chief of the engineering and capital planning bureau.

Earlier this year, the City Council discussed the possibility of building both a temporary and a permanent skate park to lure skateboarders away from Fountain Square and other city-owned properties where skateboarding is prohibited. But feedback from residents convinced city staff to scrap the plan for the temporary site.

"People really opposed that," Biggs said. "So we are just going to go to doing a permanent skate park."

Residents recommended finding a location that was as central as possible, with good access by public transportation, while as far as possible from residences, Biggs said.

Community members also favored an in-ground concrete design to appeal to multiple styles of skateboarding.

"As we went through everything we found a good location might be Twiggs Park. This is just adjacent to Green Bay Road. It's not adjacent to residences. There are some businesses located nearby," Biggs told councilmembers.

"We put this out there as a potential location, we received a lot of favorable comments about it. So now we're on to next steps."

The city engineer said a request for proposals for a design consulted will be issued in the fall, with more public engagement to develop the design through the summer of 2022.

In the fall of 2022, funding would be provided from the capital improvement budget, with construction to follow in 2023.

The city had budgeted $60,000 to pay for the temporary park this year. Biggs said that money can now be put toward the budget for construction consulting.

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At least a half-dozen other north suburban park districts already operate free skate parks, including Wilmette, Niles, Glenview, Northbrook, Deerfield and Highland Park.

Since Evanston does not have an independent park district, the city's Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department will be tasked with managing the park.

At the second community advisory meeting, members of the city's skateboarding community encouraged city staff to work with the advocacy group Evanston Skates and the Skatepark Project, formerly known as the Tony Hawk Foundation, the Evanston RoundTable reported last month.

At Monday's City Council meeting, Biggs said city staff are in the process of forming a strategic advisory committee. She also emphasized that city officials are making every effort to ensure the skate park is built to the highest safety standards.

"Skate parks have an interesting liability component to them," she said. "And I do think we have to be really careful about making sure that we are really trying to procure the best services, the best way, all the time, in order to make sure that we limit our liability in the event that somebody would ultimately, potentially be injured in the skate park."