Vocal social media critics of early plans for a redesign of Marathon’s skate park were nowhere to be found at the city’s Feb. 6 workshop to solicit public input about the preliminary design concepts. Instead, Marathon City Hall’s council chambers were filled with dozens of residents, teens and families voicing their support for the project.
The evening opened with a presentation from Tito Porrata of Platform Group, a professional skate park design firm tasked with developing the overarching concept for the revamped park, billed as a “wheel park” to be used by skaters, rollerbladers, bikers and scooter riders alike. A preliminary plan as presented at the meeting includes a linear park with a 15,000-square-foot street course, a 2,000-square-foot bowl and 2,300-square-foot “pump track.” Porrata touted the new space’s potential as the start of a master redesign for the community park, offering multipurpose space and a unified front for the park along U.S. 1.
Porrata and current Marathon Planning Commission chair Matt Sexton, a longtime proponent of the park both personally and through his nonprofit Florida Keys Community Center, then opened the floor for suggestions, support and concern from those gathered.
Local teens and longtime users of the old park voiced encouragement for the project and its potential to serve as a family-friendly attraction and future event venue – some with typed speeches, as brought by 11- and 12-year-olds Aaron Hager and his friend Levi. Design requests included shade structures, water fountains, a closer bathroom and specific individual park elements.
While seizing another opportunity to raise the issue of Marathon’s 2016 nonbinding referendum vote to research a community pool, dozens of online commenters took umbrage with the proposed design’s expanded boundary. As initially planned, the new park would reach beyond the current skate park footprint along the northern edge of the currently established soccer fields.
“I drove by the park yesterday afternoon and the soccer field was busy, skate park not so much,” wrote one of the more civil commenters. “I’m sure that has to do with safety and the current state of the park, but to take away from something that’s clearly being utilized frequently by both children and adults alike doesn’t make sense.”
Though not a single online commenter offered an in-person statement at the meeting to oppose the new park, the social media dialogue was clearly impactful for Marathon Parks and Recreation Director Paul Davis, who delivered a strong address to those gathered on Monday night.
Although the area to be occupied by the new park would subtract a portion from Marathon’s only publicly accessible full-sized soccer field – used at times for sports practices and event space during the city’s larger festivals – Davis said it would not affect the city’s youth sports programs as currently structured. In addition to creating smaller sideways fields near the park’s amphitheater for younger divisions while using the midsized field near the park’s eastern edge, he pointed to an agreement with Stanley Switlik Elementary School that would allow use of the school’s fields as needed.
“I would not bring (Platform Group) out to the field if we did not think about that first,” he said. “I’m not going to waste people’s time and say ‘hey, we want this skatepark, forget about everybody else.’
“This group right here, our teenagers, this is what needs to be addressed right now. … Every program that we do, I want to make sure everybody is taken care of. My kids are grown, but these (teens) are my kids right here.”
“We went a little bit beyond the skate park footprint to really make sure we’re positioning this in the right spot,” added Porrata. “I can’t predict (residents’) concerns, but we’re here to hear you out.”
A second meeting for public input will be established at a later date to be announced, the design group said.
“If you want to reach out, please do. And if you have any friends or other people that are interested in speaking their mind, this is the chance,” said Sexton. “We’re going to keep going further down this road, and if you wait till the end, it doesn’t really help us to make sure we can address your concerns. So please be proactive in sharing this information with the rest of our people in this community.”
The new park is intended as a public-private partnership. The park’s design was paid for by Sexton’s Florida Keys Community Center, and Marathon has already budgeted $300,000 for the project while applying for a 100% matching grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It has also applied for a $50,000 grant from the Skatepark Project, a group founded by renowned skater Tony Hawk that helps municipalities build quality public skate parks. In a press release, the city stated that several private foundations have already made promises to support the reconstruction.
