Getting ready to roll: Moses Lake Skate Park additions underway

MOSES LAKE — The additions to the Moses Lake Skate Park should be ready for skaters in about two weeks, after Phase 1 of construction is done.

“We’re building a bowl and a little street course over here,” said Brice Niebuhr, owner of Outer Space Concrete & Construction, which is a subcontractor for the project.

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, a street course has stairs and a handrail, the kind of obstacles skaters would find on a city street. The bowl is exactly what it sounds like; in this case, built for beginner to intermediate skaters, Niebuhr said. The skate park additions were designed by Seattle-based Grindline Concrete Skatepark Design & Construction.

The Outer Space construction crew knows what skaters are looking for.

“We’re all skateboarders, too,” Niebuhr said.

In fact, Niebuhr knows the Moses Lake park.

“My boss (Niebuhr) actually skated here when he was younger,” said Nygel Mayfield, part of the Outer Space crew.

And it’s still the same park at 414 W. Fourth Ave. now as it was then, Niebuhr said. It’s more than 25 years old. He compared the additions to an evolution – as skaters evolve, the skate park is, too. And the upgraded obstacles will help young skaters improve their skills, he said.

The bowl is about 6 feet deep, with a concrete lip, as opposed to metal.

Mayfield said metal or concrete is a matter of personal preference for skaters, but moisture, like rain or frost, isn’t a good mix with a skateboard.

“That (water) on your wheels – you’re slipping out some way,” Mayfield said.

Outer Space Concrete & Construction specializes in building concrete components.

The obstacles will be built with shotcrete, which is concrete or mortar conveyed through a hose and pneumatically projected at high velocity onto a surface.

“Pneumatically-placed concrete,” said Jack Balerud, who also is on the Outer Space crew. “It’s like airbrushing with concrete.”

Construction of any bowl requires getting the slope of the sides just right; and it is there the skateboarder’s eye is an asset.

“We can anticipate how it’s going to skate,” Niebuhr said.

Getting the slope right requires some engineering, but there’s a little more to it than that.

“It’s kind of like artwork,” Mayfield said. “Sculpting and molding, like a potter with clay.”

The Moses Lake bowl was a little more challenging, since it was built above ground. Mayfield said part of the design is making sure the obstacles in the skate park work with, and not against, each other.

“It’s about the flow a lot of times,” he said.

More practical considerations also come into play. The bowl doesn’t have a drain, but it is built to channel runoff to avoid water buildup, Mayfield said.

The current additions are Phase 1 of a larger skatepark redesign. The Moses Lake Rotary Club spearheaded a fundraising drive for Phase 1, eventually raising about $141,000 for the project earlier this year from many donors. The club approached the city in September 2019 about the project.

Hochstatter Electric, Heating and Air in Moses Lake, will install new LED lighting for the park as part of Phase 1, according to a previous Herald story.

Once Phase 1 is complete, the work will be passed off to the city for Phase 2. The city’s plans were unavailable by press time.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.