Last week, four local skateboarders, some from Jamestown and some from North Kingstown, gathered outside the Lawn Avenue School and marveled at the construction site there. "I can't believe this is in Jamestown," said one of the skaters.

The construction site will seen be a state-of-the art skateboarding park, the quality of which is unrivaled in Rhode Island.

"Whether Jamestown likes it or not, they are getting the best skate park in the whole state," said Sam Batterson, of Breaking Ground, the Providence-based business that built the park.

The park is a 5,000-square foot slab of poured concrete that physically bends and meanders along curves that make for a better skating experience. The park's various bowls and quarter pipes never bends higher than 4 feet off the ground, but sometimes drop at an almost 90-degree angle.

Most skate parks on the East Coast - like the homemade skateboard ramps that are made out of plywood and 2-by-4s - are made of cheap materials with shoddy design, according to Batterson. The Jamestown Skate Park utilizes a technology used in the hugely popular skate parks of the Pacific Coast called cast-in-place concrete. "First you form the earth below to look like what you want the park to look like," said Batterson, who along with his crew has constructed several such parks from Portland, Ore., to Cape Cod. "Then you just pour the concrete ever it," he said. Batterson explained that a dry mix of cement is used to ensure that it will property form on the curved surfaces. "It's a step up 'from the modular design most towns build around here," he added.

Last week, Breaking Ground poured the last piece of the park and as soon as the town receives the insurance go-ahead, the Friends of Jamestown Skaters, which was started by parents of children who had no decent place to use their skateboards, will have a grand opening for the new skateboard and in-line skating facility. This will bring to a close a project that has been in the works for over two years, and that as recently as two months ago was in danger of not coming to fruition.

In September, with a $25,000 state recreation grant about to expire, the friends of the skaters was still $14,000 under the $75,000 needed to complete the project. They staged a massive fund-raising effort and secured the needed funding just in time.

"The recreation grant was going to run out and that put the onus on us to get it done this year," said Clayton Carlisle, who has spoken at various town meetings on behalf of friends of skaters and has kids who skate. "We went out and raised $14,000 in three weeks. It was make or break time and a lot of people responded and made sure this project got done. It was a real community effort," he added.

Originally, the Friends of Jamestown Skaters had their eye on Taylor Point as a possible site. But when Recreation Director Matt Bolles found out about it, he cleared it with the town and offered the group a home on one of the old basketball courts at the Lawn Avenue School, 'The Lawn Avenue School turned out to be an excellent location because it should be near other facilities," said Carlisle, "It was just about he right size and a better location he added.

Once the group had the right location, it went on to the design phase, with this Jamestown skater Ryan Weibust assisted hem. A Jamestown resident mid senior at North Kingstown High School at the time. Weibust had been to many skate parks around the country. He and Steve Lane were the lead architects for the design that Batterson and his crew constructed. Weibust and Lane designed the park with various quarter pipes, which, just as they sound. are a quarter section of pipe that skaters ride up and down. There are other variations of this feature, such as a spine, two quarter pipes back-to-back, or a bowl, two quarter pipes face-to-face, also known as a half pipe. "It's not an awesome 10-foot Tony Hawk-type. but it is pretty advanced," said Carlisle.