Photo: Nicholas Johansen

Mayor Doug Findlater, Mason Barzilay and MP Dan Albas at the old skatepark.

After over a year of lobbying for a new skatepark in West Kelowna, Mason Barzilay’s goal will finally be realized.

Okanagan-Coquihalla Member of Parliament, Dan Albas, and West Kelowna Mayor, Doug Findlater, announced today the beginning stages of the Memorial Park Plan, an $813,000 infrastructure development that will include tiered amphitheatre seating, a bike park and the long-awaited new skatepark.

Barzilay, a competitive freestyle skier who was born and raised in West Kelowna, said the new skatepark will give young people in her community something to do.

“The West Kelowna skateboard park group on Facebook has over 200 members,” said Barzilay. “That’s over 200 kids that would be coming here on a regular basis.”

She said everyone has a right to affordable fitness activities, and the skatepark will provide this.

The new skatepark will be constructed in the same area the old one sits. Findlater said the old skatepark was built approximately 25 years ago. The cracked concrete leaves it pretty close to unusable.

Findlater said the total cost of the Memorial Park Plan is estimated at $813,000. Albas said $315,000 of that will be contributed by the federal government as part of their $46 million Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program, an initiative to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary.

The City of West Kelowna will provide $495,000 for the project from its capital reserves.

Brazilay’s fundraising efforts over the past year added an extra $1,800 to the skatepark funding. In addition to financial support, Findlater called Barzilay the “sparkplug” that got the ball rolling on the project.

“It (the skatepark) was in the Capital Plan but it was 2022 or something, and now the skatepark is being designed as we speak … to be constructed in 2016,” Findlater said.

In addition to the skatepark, the addition of permanent seating at Memorial Park will go a long way for community events held in the park, like Music in the Park, Canada Day celebrations and Westside Daze, according to Findlater.

“A gentleman sat in a chair at one of the events at Westside Daze (this past year) and the chair collapsed and he went down hill into a whole bunch of other chairs,” Findlater said. “He was fine. Fortunately they were plastic chairs and he was durable, but that’s when I said, ‘Gee we better get moving on this.’”

Findlater said for both the tiered seating and the new skatepark, he expects construction to begin as early as April 2016, with a possible completion date of that summer.