Plans for revamped skate park in Troy begin to cement

Thanks to a recent swell in public support, Troy community organizers and city officials are working with a construction firm to give the municipality’s skatepark a facelift.

City Councilor TJ Boswell said residents began voicing their support for upgrades at the park in a survey last year. Locals began sending letters to city officials, appearing at council meetings and making donations.

Now Troy has $75,000 to put towards the project and Boswell expects more funding to come down the pike. Depending on whether city councilors succeed in securing a state grant, the city could have $180,000 to fund development at the park.

City councilors and members of Troy’s nascent skatepark committee have partnered with Dreamland Skateparks, an Oregon-based company that specializes in concrete skateparks, to undertake the project.

Boswell said organizers plan to divide the project into two phases. The first will tackle the construction of an in-ground bowl off of the south end of the park. The bowl will extend roughly 50 feet and will be up to six or eight feet deep. Organizers will use the $75,000 they have already collected through donations to fund the work. If any dollars are leftover, Boswell said builders could begin tackling features on the park’s existing 40- by 90-foot pad.

Dreamland employees were schedules to begin work on this phase of the project last week.

In the second phase of construction, community organizers will focus on adding features to the above-ground pad. This work, however, hinges on the city receiving a grant from the state Land and Water Conservation Fund, administered by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Boswell said city officials expected to hear back on the grant award in late December or January. Dreamland has scheduled construction for this phase to begin next spring.

Kolby Zugg, who helped lead community support for the project and has skated at the park for years, was thrilled to see locals rallying around the upgrades. Once the work is complete, he envisioned creating a skateboarding contest that would cycle competitors between Troy and other Dreamland parks in Polson and Whitefish.

“You could do it on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday and have a big bash at the end,” he said. “It would be cool to have the last contest here, the blow out here, at the end of the weekend.”

Revamping the skate park represents more than just building a place to land gnarly tricks for Zugg and other community organizers, including Zach McDougall.

“It’s not just about skateboarding, it's just about humans,” said Zugg. “It’d be amazing to bring people to this community.”

The skate park upgrades are part of a larger push by city officials to recast Troy’s recreational opportunities. City councilors are planning to build up the municipality’s splash pad and develop the Pedaler’s Park near the Troy Museum.