Consultant to look at downtown skatepark

Whether a skatepark fits within plans to improve a downtown riverfront plaza is a key question that is part of a planning and engineering contract now before City Council.

Mayor Lovely Warren has sent Council legislation seeking approval of a $700,000 contract with T.Y. Lin International to develop plans for rejuvenating Charles Carroll Plaza behind the Kenneth B. Keating Federal Building and the Rochester Plaza Hotel and Conference Center. That work will coincide with needed repairs and upgrades to the Genesee Crossroads parking garage roof below. The city is eying the northern edge of the park, near Andrews Street, for a possible skatepark.

Council members will consider the contract later this month. If hired, the Rochester firm would spend the next six to eight months developing a park design while meeting with those who work and live nearby — particularly about the prospect of including a skatepark.

"We're looking at how do we activate that park and get it back to what it used to be, which was a very active place," said City Engineer Jim McIntosh. "We have not done any real public outreach (about including a skatepark). ... We will work with the skatepark folks so they can put their position out there."

The city expects construction to start in winter 2016, and be completed in winter 2017.

Construction costs are estimated at nearly $4.2 million. But that will mostly be consumed by the garage repairs, McIntosh said, with enough leftover to possibly provide the basis for a skatepark but not build one. The firm does have the capacity to design the skatepark, if needed.

Money for building a park will come from grants and, mostly, through fundraising, said James Maddison, president of the Friends of the Roc City Skatepark.

"We've got donors ready and willing to give us money," he said, though uncertain of dollar amounts.

The city previously funded a $50,000 study that found that locating a skatepark under the Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge was feasible. That space came with the added benefit of coverage, or shelter with the bridge overhead, officials said, but was owned by the state Department of Transportation and part of the city trail system.

"On the balance, it's pretty equal," Maddison said of the two locations, adding that an artistic roof structure on poles could be built at Charles Carroll Plaza. "There's ups and downs with both."

BDSHARP@DemocratandChronicle.com

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