Construction starts on Cape skate park; November completion expected

Site work has begun for a Cape Girardeau skate park that could be open before Thanksgiving, city parks division manager Brock Davis said Thursday.

Rainy weather has delayed the work, which began last week at Arena Park, Davis said.

The Cape Girardeau City Council approved a design-build contract for the long-sought skate park in April. But Davis said construction of the skate park was held off until after the SEMO District Fair concluded. That's because the park is being built on less than an acre of land donated by the SEMO Fair Board. The site near East Rodney Drive and Hawthorne Road has been used for fair parking for years.

The Fair Board's Pete Poe said, "We will have to rearrange some of the parking." But he said the skate-park project will include a parking area, which could provide some parking for fairgoers going forward.

Rain has turned the site into a muddy spot this week. "Right now, it looks pretty ragged," Poe said.

American Ramp Co. of Joplin, Missouri, is constructing the concrete, triangle-shaped skate park. Under the agreement, negotiated by city staff, the maximum cost of the project would be slightly more than $252,000, city engineer Casey Brunke said in a council agenda letter earlier this year.

Private fundraising efforts have generated about $60,000 toward the project, leaving the city to pay about $192,000 of the cost, city officials said.

The city's share of funding will come from revenue generated by the parks/stormwater sales tax approved by voters in 2008.

The city did not advertise for bids for the project. City manager Scott Meyer said earlier this year the city did not have to take bids because American Ramp Co. has a cooperative purchasing contract. Meyer said American Ramp and its competitors have listed prices that have been publicly bid nationally, allowing the city to obtain better prices.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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