THUNDER BAY — The City of Thunder Bay has released a draft plan for a skate park and public plaza at the former site of the Dease Pool.
The plan will be honed based on public consultation over the coming months, with staff set to bring final recommendations, along with cost estimates, to city council by the end of September.
Council, which will hear a presentation on the draft design on Monday, approved the plan to build a skate park on the site in 2021. It hasn’t yet approved funding or a timeline for the work, however.
Werner Schwar, parks and open space planning supervisor with the city, said staff are hoping to hear public feedback on the plaza design, and how residents want to see it integrated with the surrounding neighbourhood — with a partial closure of Dease Street one potential option.
Consultations will target the neighbourhood surrounding Dease Park and the local skateboard community, while the general public will be able to weigh in online.
The Thunder Bay Skateboard Coalition has already collaborated closely with the city to inform the design of the skateboard park.
The intention is to create a public plaza that will provide green space and encourage community gatherings, not simply a skate park, said Schwar.
That’s perhaps most clearly represented by the inclusion of an outdoor pizza oven in the draft design.
“That really would be a first for us in Thunder Bay — I know it’s used in Southern Ontario in quite a few community parks,” said Schwar. “Food is often a great equalizer and brings people together, and that’s really the idea here.”
The plans are likely to face a higher degree of public scrutiny thanks to controversy surrounding the city’s decision to demolish Dease Pool in 2019, which drew strong objections from some nearby residents.
Skateboard coalition chair John Kelly, who grew up in the neighbourhood and still lives nearby, said he understands some residents are still upset, but believes the new plaza — along with improvements to adjacent Dease Park — is great news for the area.
“We know that the pool was very important to this neighbourhood, and that was the hub,” he said. “But if the pool wasn’t going to go forward, we wanted to have some kind of low-cost recreation for the youth of this neighbourhood. That’s the glue [that] keeps everyone together.”
Kelly and Schwar agree the plans will support equitable access to parks and recreation in a neighbourhood that has struggled with high levels of poverty and addiction.
“The idea is that by creating activity, especially at this high-visibility corner, that it will encourage the youth to come participate in constructive activities, neighbourhood-building activities, and then less likely to hang out and cause damage — especially in a case like this, where it really is a community effort to help design the thing, so there’s buy-in and skin in the game, if you will,” said Schwar.
The dividends of that approach are already being seen, he said, after the city made the first of several planned improvements to Dease Park last summer, adding a boarded ice rink that doubles as a basketball court in the summer.
Further improvements like a playground expansion and change room facility are planned for the future.
“We reconstructed the rink this fall and people have been using the park, so that’s great to see,” said Schwar. “Now that there’s activity in the park and the rink’s well-lit, there’s less attraction there for people doing nefarious things.”
The skateboard coalition is putting its weight, and existing relationships with local youth, behind the city’s efforts.
“We definitely want to fundraise for it,” Kelly said. “I think that’s something we did well with the Marina skateboard park [so] there’s more pride in it.”
“That park’s 15 years old now, and there’s very little to no graffiti, and if there is, it’s cleaned off quickly, no broken glass. All the stereotypes you think of a skateboard park are not there, because this is our park.”
The idea was recommended by city administration following significant consultation, including an online survey, on-site open house, and consultations with students from nearby schools.
Of 360 survey respondents, around 70 per cent supported a skate park, along with 84 per cent of the roughly 70 people at in-person consultations.
Still, the city has acknowledged the proposal generated some noise concerns from area residents.
Proponents say noise reduction features in the design will address the issue, and the city will also have a consultant review the final design specifically for noise mitigation.
Kelly doesn’t believe noise from the park will go beyond existing ambient noise from park activity and traffic.
“If you’re on a rough surface going down a sidewalk, it is noisy,” he said. “When it’s on proper, smooth concrete, the sound is significantly decreased, and it’s actually less noisy than say, the hockey rink right here.”
The site will serve as a “training ground” of sorts for the waterfront skate park, which offers larger features and caters to more advanced skateboarders.
That responds to the changing face of the sport, which is attracting increasingly diverse participation, Kelly said.
“Now we have a lot of beginner skateboarders, we have a lot of returning skateboarders, aging skateboarders, skateboarders with their kids. So now we need some terrain to learn on to build up to the terrain that’s at the Marina skateboard park.”
Kelly said he’s hopeful construction could move forward in 2024.
