During a continued session on Monday night, Franklin’s Town Council decided that the Whitmire property would serve as the home of Franklin’s new skate park.
For several months, the council has been working with the advocacy group SK828 and JE Dunn Construction on plans for a skate park at Memorial (Jaycees) Park. The location offers young skaters a short walk from Franklin High School or anywhere else in the downtown area to a space that’s already used for recreation. However, environmental concerns have been brought up about the impact construction would have on available green space and runoff to the neighboring creek.
“If we brought in a bunch of new dirt and built a skate park right here, flooding could get even worse,” council member David Culpepper said. “It’s also taking away a big patch of grass in what’s already a park. We’d basically be trading away one park for another.”
The meeting on Monday was mobile, as concerned citizens followed the council members on a tour of the Memorial Park site and the Whitmire Property, which was proposed as an alternative with lower environmental risks. A space near the new dog park on Phillips Street was originally considered, but the council chose to drop it because of time constraints. JE Dunn Construction is offering a significant amount of free resources to get the project off the ground, but they’ll be unavailable by next week, so the fact that the town doesn’t own the Phillips Street property would have resulted in unacceptable delays.
“We didn’t know time was going to be so much of a factor,” council member Dinah Mashburn said. “That’s never going to work in time.”
In the end, the council members voted unanimously to approve the northeast corner of the Whitmire property, which is situated across the street from the Tricorn building. The spot benefits from close proximity to parking, lower risk of flooding and enough shade to keep the concrete from burning up on hot summer days. There is some concern that kids will have to cross larger, busier roads to get to it than Memorial Park, but the skaters who attended the meeting were generally happy with the decision.
“It was great,” skater Will Boone said of the Whitmire location. “It seemed like the best spot that they could have picked.”
SK828 organizer Tim Shaw was frustrated to see a change in plans so late in the process, especially since they already have park designs specifically tailored to Memorial Park. However, there’s enough space available at the Whitmire property to accommodate those plans. Shaw’s priority is getting his sons a safe place to skate, so as long as the town doesn’t drag their feet on executing the new plan.
“As long as we get a skate park in, I’m happy,” Shaw said.
Initial site work at the Whitmire property was expected to begin this week.