ENCINITAS — A design team is closing in on what the new bike and skateboard features at Standard Pacific Park in Leucadia will look like after soliciting community feedback on Sept. 26.
While Standard Pacific Park’s overall design already got the green light from the Encinitas City Council in March, city officials and designers with RRM Design Group and Wormhoudt Incorporated wanted to drill down on the area that generated the greatest community excitement at public workshops: the bike and skate spot.
The park will definitely have an all-wheel pump track with rolling mounds and turns that challenge bike, scooter, skateboard and rollerblade riders to use momentum and balance to pump their way around the circuit.
What was discussed at the Sept. 26 meeting at City Hall was whether an additional skate feature, such as a bowl or street-style curbs, should be incorporated and, if so, how.
It was clear that the vast majority of meeting attendees wanted a pump track and a separate, rather than connected, skate feature. The second-ranked option was a pump track perimeter with a skate feature core. No one voted for a pump track with skate features along it or for a pump track exclusively.
The area designated for the bike and skate spot is about 85 feet by 70 feet, which RRM’s Senior Designer Amanda Conahan likened to the size of two tennis courts.
Given the size constraints, Conahan explained that earlier feedback was to avoid “overdesigning” the area — and to instead focus on creating one or two carefully planned features. That made sense to the group gathered in City Hall, which included skateboarding fathers and their young daughters, teenagers and other skate and bike enthusiasts.
Zachary Wormhoudt, whose company has been contracted by RRM for the skate and bike design, told the attendees, “I’ve surfed and skated my whole life, and my five kids surf and skate. I know that this park will be someone’s home away from home.” He said the skate features will be appropriate for beginning, intermediate and perhaps even advanced skill levels and will “allow for skating progression.”
Conahan estimates that the conceptual design for the bike and skate spot will take about a month to generate.
Director of Parks and Recreation Jennifer Campbell anticipates that the 3.1-acre Standard Pacific Park will be finished in fall 2019. It will have a children’s zip line, sloped adventure path, fenced dog area and more.
