When the city’s skatepark task force meets on Monday, January 8, one of the first topics they will cover is how to replace the last remaining skate park in the central city, which was demolished last week to make way for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s new headquarters. More than a half million dollars set aside from the sale of the 12-acre parking lot where the skate park was located will go toward replacing it somewhere on the Seattle Center campus.

The destruction of the skatepark came as a surprise to skaters like John Carr and Matt Johnston, both members of a citywide skatepark task force, who were under the impression that the site for a replacement park would be named before the wrecking crew came through.

Carr and other skateboarding advocates met about seven months ago with Seattle Center and city officials to find a feasible location on the Seattle Center campus. Seattle Center communications director Kari Shaw says, “It was a positive meeting and lots of great ideas were exchanged.” However, she adds, “It’s a long process of identifying where the skatepark needs to be. We’re looking for a spot that is 15,000 square feet and there is not a lot of space like that [at the Center].”

Johnston, however, says Seattle Center officials have not been eager to communicate with the skateboarding community. “We walked around the entire campus and had to listen to why a skatepark was not possible on every inch of the campus,” Johnston says.

Pro-skatepark city council members Richard Conlin (and, reportedly, Jan Drago) agree that working with Seattle Center has been challenging.

“Why [skaters and Center officials] have been at odds baffles me,” Conlin says. “The skatepark could bring in a new constituency—young people to activate it more than it is now. But [Center officials] don’t seem to think that way.”

Conlin adds that he didn’t expect the demolition to happen so soon. “I’m not happy that it would take place without a replacement for the park being sited,” he says.

The requirement to rebuild the park comes from a city council resolution sponsored by Council Member Drago almost two years ago. IRIS Holdings, a for-profit company closely affiliated with the Gates Foundation, bought the property in 2005. The company is also heading the development of the foundation’s new headquarters where the skatepark once stood.

Under the terms of the purchase agreement between the Gates Foundation and Seattle Center, the new skatepark is supposed to be open by the time the parking facility for the new headquarters is finished in late 2008.

In a letter to City Attorney Tom Carr’s office, lawyers for the Gates Foundation reiterated that “it is incumbent on the [Center] to complete its actions and obligations to relocate the skateboard park.”

For now, though, there isn’t so much as a sketch of what the new park will look like.

The skatepark task force will meet Mon Jan 8 at 7 pm at the Seattle Parks and Administration Building, 100 Dexter Ave N.

editor@thestranger.com