Sarah Lemmon August 25, 2017 3:20pm

Photo via The Seattle Times

Earlier this week the Parks Department took down the illegally constructed skate bowl on Duck Island, a protected nature area. As we reported two weeks ago, that would likely come with some hefty costs. And this week we found out how much. The Parks Department anticipates that it will cost $33,000 to deconstruct the skate bowl and restore the area. We saw a lot of chatter on the Seattle Greenlaker Facebook page with neighbors asking why the cost was so high. One person commented that it certainly didn’t cost the “builders” that much to create it.

Thanks to a tip from local Greenlaker James C who has been emailing with Kelly Brown, a Interim Strategic Communications Advisor for Seattle Parks Department we have more info.

According to Kelly:

“The deconstruction is two-fold. There is a skate park removal component and a restoration component. The removal project itself is estimated to cost between $5,796 and $6,296. This estimate includes but is not limited to labor costs and dump fees. The restoration component is more expensive as it is a bit more involved and will take place overtime. The restoration process is estimated to cost about $26,696.56. The restoration efforts include but are not limited to replanting, replacing soil, and removing damaged trees.”

While I’m grateful that the Parks Department is willing to invest in restoring that area for wildlife I can’t help but wonder how far this money could have gone to make some of the much needed updates to the Green Lake Community Center.

We have reached out to the Seattle Police Department multiple times to find out more on any arrests or leads about this investigation and have not heard back.

As people have voiced several times on Facebook and via email to Seattle Greenlaker recently, the people that did this should pay for the repairs. Our hope is that someday they will.