Site of former school chosen for Warren skate park

By Ed Runyan

WARREN — The decision is official: Warren’s skate park will be located in the rear corner of the former Turner Middle School site near Packard Music Hall.

Mayor Michael O’Brien said Monday construction will begin within the next couple of weeks and should be complete before the first snowfall.

He considered a site in Perkins Park after neighbors on Mahoning Avenue expressed concerns about having skateboarders near their homes, but water near the surface of the soil made the Perkins site impractical.

There are no similar problems with the former Turner site, O’Brien said Monday.

But as a way to keep noise down, the city moved the park location to the northwest corner of the site — about 120 yards from Mahoning Avenue and about 150 yards or more from the apartments.

The city will also plant thick arborvitae trees on the east and south sides of the fenced-in skate park to block noise to houses along Mahoning Avenue to the east and Packard House Apartments to the south, O’Brien said.

Other amenities will also be brought to the site, O’Brien said, with playground equipment being moved there from the back of Packard Music Hall. Benches, picnic tables and other improvements are also likely, he said.

A park employee who lives in the house adjacent to the Packard Shelter House near the skate park will also be responsible for monitoring the park, O’Brien added.

About a dozen citizens living near the Turner site turned out for a city council committee meeting in late July to express their concerns about the park. Many said they feared a skatepark because of problems at other skateparks in the area, such as Struthers, Liberty and Newton Falls.

“It’s going to be right in front of our home. Why there? Everyone there is older people. The potential for noise and disturbance is very great,” Belinda Johnson said.

On Monday, The Vindicator knocked on doors along Mahoning Avenue to find out how other residents near the skate park feel.

Steve and Donis Sardich, who live a short distance north of the proposed location, across from Packard Park, said they are hopeful that the park will give kids something constructive to do.

“I think the fact that it [the skate park] would give kids someplace go, that’s reason enough” to build it, Donis Sardich said.

Sardich said she’s read that many of her neighbors are concerned about noise problems that might accompany skateboarders, but she’s used to noise.

“I can’t believe they’re not used to the noise here with the traffic, the boom boxes and the motorcycles,” she said.

The Sardiches have lived in their home 22 years.

Benjamin Seeman, who lives almost directly across the street from the proposed park, said he is among those concerned with the noise.

“My understanding is there is a lot of noise, young-peoplewise. I just don’t think it ought to go in there,” he said, adding that he believes the noise sometimes comes from arguments or fights.

A longtime Mahoning Avenue resident in her 80s who didn’t want to give her name said she liked having a school across the street and she’s glad a skate park is being provided for kids.

“A lot of times the kids leave their garbage, and I don’t like that, but otherwise I don’t mind,” she said.

“If the kids are going to enjoy it, I don’t mind,” she said. She’s lived there since the 1920s.

A young mother across Mahoning from the site said she’s had things stolen from near her porch and on her porch in the past year and other problems when the school was still standing, so she’s concerned that the neighborhood could get worse because of the skate park.

“They [skateboarders] are not all bad. There are kids who just want to skateboard and make a sport of it who just want to have fun. I get that, but there’s also been syringes [used for injecting drugs] at Packard Park. You never know. I like it the way it is,” she said.

Michael Young, an 18-year-old Warren skateboarder, said he supports putting the skatepark on the former middle school property, in part because it’s close to Perkins and Packard parks.

Young said Warren is considered a good place to ride a skateboard, partly because of the two hills near the Warren Amphitheater on the edge of Perkins Park.

Skateboarders like using both parks, however, Young said, noting that he and his friends primarily use roads and sidewalks because things such as tables, handrails and steps are off limits.

There are a lot of kids from outside Warren who enjoy getting together with their friends from Warren and riding in the city, Young said, adding that his favorite place to ride outside of the city is the skate park in Newton Falls Park.

Young’s friend C.J. Hamner, 17, of Warren, said he and his friends do sometimes skate on curbs, tables, metal rails and the like.

Young said he prefers to skate in a skate park than in areas that are off limits.

“If they catch you somewhere you’re not supposed to be, they’re going to take your board and arrest you,” Young said.

The 40-foot-by-80-foot skate park will feature a concrete pad, equipment to skate on, such as a grind rail and half pipes, and an 8-foot-wide oval just outside the fence for roller or inline skaters.

The $75,000 cost will be paid from a federal grant. It will be open from dawn to dusk, year-round, unless there are problems, and then it will be locked up, O’Brien said.

runyan@vindy.com