Locals work on building estimated $1 million skate plaza

St. Cloud Park and Rec. Board member, 14-year old Austin Lee is currently working on adding a skate plaza to Lake George

Dana Johnson
Posted: 2/15/07

In fact, one teenager has taken a majority of the project into his own hands with the help of the city government.

St. Cloud plans on turning 40,000 square feet of the land into a personal playground for anyone who knows what an "ollie" is.

The mass of land will become a skate plaza, open to the public with no admission fee.

Behind every massive project is a lot of work. The leader behind this project is 14-year-old Austin Lee.

Last summer, he approached Mayor Dave Kleis at a 4th of July festival to set up a meeting to pitch his idea for the plaza.

Two weeks later, Lee found himself the youngest member of the St. Cloud's Park and Recreation Board. And the youngest member to serve the St. Cloud government. He has full voting privileges on the board despite not being able to vote come election day. He signed a three-year contract with the board and hopes to serve it long after the plaza is built.

Lee has received nothing but full support for the project from the park and recreation board, and the rest of the city as well.

On Dec. 7, the park and recreation committee unanimously approved Lake George as the official location of the new skate plaza.

On Oct. 13, he was ABC World News Tonight's "Person of the Week."

"The difference between a skate park and a skate plaza, which is why I'm really excited for a skate plaza instead of a skate park, is because it brings out the downtown type of vibe. So you get the stairs and the handrails, ledges and benches. It's more a park to skate in rather then a skate park," Lee said. "So a skate park has a lot of the ramps the traditional Tony Hawk style objects. The skate plaza really gets away from that and really focuses on what 80 percent of the skate boarders are skating today."

Based on the proposed size of the plaza it will cost roughly between $500,000 and $1 million

At Lake George Municipal Complex the first fundraiser meeting will be conducted at 6:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15.

The Elk Club donated $300 to be used specifically toward the first fundraising event. Their goal is to organize and conduct the event before May 2007.

The first donation for the plaza was given by Mayor Kleis.

As soon as the funds are raised, they plan on beginning construction.

"We're hoping to do it as soon as possible. We got to raise a lot of money, but we have kind of a lot of support. We've heard a lot about Norm Coleman, he's a senator, saying that he feels that it's important for a skate plaza to be built, and it's number three on his list of things to do for the year," Lee said.

General consensus among the skateboarding community is that this plaza is going to be worth the time and money.

Mike Thieaes, a skateboarder for the past 20 years of his life and a member of the Youth Shelter Team from Youth Shelter Supply in St. Cloud, he said is excited for the project.

"The whole downtown area is going to get kind of a face lift with the new library and a place to skate board right in the same area. All of the kids can go to it, it's free, so any income family can afford to go there whenever," Thieaes said.

He has attended every meeting for the skate park so far, along with most of the members from Youth Shelter, and plans on attending most of the fundraisers, he said.

"We had St. Cloud's main skate boarders, which some were from the Youth Shelter Team, and I myself kind of put together something that we would think would be great for skate boarding, what we think would be good stuff to skate on. We sent them to our skate boarding architects and then they took it and they are making our concept designs and we will be getting those shortly," Lee said.

The committee has submitted the recommended features to Site Design Group Inc., and they are currently waiting for the first set of concept designs to be completed.

Many surrounding cities such as Elk River and Big Lake have skate parks in them that are much smaller then what's being planned here.

"A skate plaza has a lot of beauty and it has trees and plants and it has a lot of stuff that you normally wouldn't see at a skate park," Lee said.

For more information, visit www.stcloudskatepark.com, which has a place to make donations, updates on the park and the media coverage Lee has received.