Construction has been steadily rolling along on the new Bike Skills Area (BSA) set to be situated in Deane’s Children’s Park.

For the last month, bike course and trail building crews from American Ramp Company and Creative Native Concepts have been bringing wooden features to life along with creating dirt jumps and berms that riders will be ripping through when the city gives them the go ahead to set their wheels in motion.

The BSA’s grand opening will occur from 3-4:30 p.m. on Nov. 15, and the facility should be fully ready to ride come the springtime of 2024, according to Sarah Bluvas, the city’s Capital Improvement Program project manager.

“The builders are making pretty amazing progress despite the rain delays we, of course, are in,” said Bluvas, noting that they are presently staging the wooden features and will install them during dry periods. “They know the features inside and out, they know where best to kind of make field adjustments to avoid impacts to trees and to maintain safety for riders.”

Following the anticipated six to eight weeks of construction, which also includes building bike trails and new access trails, a city crew will jump into action with some projects that will include completing the split rail fence aimed to create a barrier between the BSA and the Deane’s playground. Mercer Islander Quinn Shavey recently joined eight volunteers to build the initial section of the fence as part of his Eagle Scout project.

Bluvas said that city staff members and volunteers will soon get their hands busy with the critical task of revegetating the BSA terrain, which has already been cleared of ivy, stumps and roots to give the builders ample space to engage in their work.

Islanders have provided robust input regarding BSA features and trails activity in the area among both users of the foot and wheeled kind. Bluvas said that people have voiced concerns about possible conflicts between different trail users in the Island Crest Park realm.

“We’re still working on improvements to mitigate that and to maintain safety for all of our various users of that trail system,” Bluvas said. “Once the BSA opens, we’ll continue to monitor any impact if there is any from the BSA on the surrounding trails.”

The road to safety for all doesn’t end there. In one section where bicyclists exit Island Crest Park, last May the city’s transporation engineer designed painted bump-outs where the trails reach 84th Avenue Southeast and the right-of-way team installed the pavement markings and a new painted crosswalk in the area.

Along with the aforementioned wooden and dirt features, the American Ramp Company-designed course is slated to feature table-top jumps, beginner and intermediate jump lines, a zig-zag short, rollable sender, 45-degree roller corner and more.

On the budget front, a previous Reporter article noted that the city council appropriated $75,000 from the Capital Improvement Fund in July 2022 to begin the 30% design. The project has an estimated total budget of $302,500.

For more information and updates, visit https://letstalk.mercergov.org/bike-skills-area-design