Skateboarders Concerned About Future of Plaza, Mayor Responds

ST. CLOUD -- As work to clear the site of the future Costco store in St. Cloud continues, skateboarders are concerned about their plaza. A Facebook video created by Mike Thienes has been shared over 900 times and has had about 30,000 views.

I just don't fully understand how the city of St. Cloud could tear down a publicly funded skate park worth three-quarters-of-a-million dollars when we'll have absolutely nowhere to go after this.

Meanwhile, St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis has been trying to answer the concerns of the skateboarders. He says the current skate plaza will be there at least until July. And, he says it is still the plan to build a new skate plaza just to the south and west of the current one in Heritage Park.

In fact, there's an opportunity actually to enhance it.  I've heard from a number of folks in the skateboard community to have water and restrooms.

Kleis says it is estimated that the new skate plaza will cost about $750,000, which will be paid for with money from the sale of the land to Costco.

Kleis says he is also encouraging engineers to start building the new skate plaza before the current one is dismantled to minimize the length of the downtime.

Kleis met with the skateboarders on Sunday and he says will continue to meet with them throughout the process and ask for their feedback on what they would like to see in the new facility.