Colby Dotson of New Haven, W.Va. ramps up the pyramid during Skate Day at HuntingtonÕs Harris Riverfront Park on Sunday, July 13, 2014.
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — On cooking asphalt the sound of wheels and wood rolling and clanking, along with the occasional thump, filled the parking lot of Harris Riverfront Park Sunday.
Dozens of local skaters turned out for Skate Day, a fundraiser for the new Huntington skateboard park expected to enter construction by late summer or early fall.
Sunday’s event let local and regional skaters come try out some custom-built ramps, most of which will be sold at a silent auction during yet another fundraiser for the project later this month.
“We’ve had a lot of people come from Ashland, Catlettsburg, Chesapeake, Morgantown and Charleston to check this out,” said Blair Burns, a local skater and former skate shop owner who helped organize Sunday’s event. “Some people have come even just to help out. It’s really cool for the city to let us do this.”
Huntington is attempting to get phase one of a three-phase project for a skate park, which would be located on the riverfront, off the ground.
Initial bids were too high, though a re-bidding process late last month dropped the price from $295,000 to $202,900.
The city’s funds for the project before Sunday’s event were $186,500, after David Basile, owner of local business Mystic Metals and Minerals Body Jewelry, donated $5,000 to match a grant from the Tony Hawk Foundation.
Now proponents of the park are doing whatever they can to help get the city to the right dollar mark.
“This is something that’s for the people,” said skater Ryan George of Ceredo. “It’s for everybody. The kids need something like this…
