Get ready to skate, Fairfield Work to begin on skate park in Fairfield

Fairfield skateboarders, get ready. The southeast Spokane County town is about break ground on a new skate park.

Construction on the $49,000 park could start in the next couple of weeks after a few loose ends are tied up with the Town Council, said Jep Edwards of the Fairfield Skate Park Committee.

Contractors were on location last week to shoot the grade for the 4,500-square-foot skateboard facility, which will be located in Thiel Park, just east of Highway 27. Skateboarders could be rolling through the site before summer’s end.

A skate park for a town of fewer than 600 people is no small order. Residents started talking about building the park in 2002 because they saw an interest among older children, who had outgrown Fairfield’s traditional park playground equipment. Because the next closest skate park is 25 miles away in Spokane Valley, Edwards and others imagine children from as far north as Freeman and as far southeast as Worley and Plummer, Idaho, coming to Fairfield to skate.

More than 30 people either pledged time or experience building the park under the supervision of national state park builder Huna Designs. but the real challenge was raising cash.

Skate park volunteers raised $8,000 for their cause, mostly through community events such as cake walks and raffles. Spokane County then came through with two park grants worth roughly $25,000. Private donors including national skateboard phenom Tony Hawk, Avista, Bank of Fairfield, AmericanWest Bank and Rockford Lions then chipped in roughly $10,000. Individual donors threw in another $6,000.

The park got a big push toward the finish line recently when it received a $5,000 grant from The Home Depot and KaBoom!, a charitable organization promoting play spaces within walking distance of every community in the country.