Downtown Poplar Bluff’s Skate Park is now more inviting to its large base of users after lights recently were installed at the facility.
“Somewhere around March 8 or 9, Shawn Adams called me and asked ‘Is there any way I can donate some solar lights to the park,’” said Parks and Recreation Director Lanny Corcimiglia. “I told him, ‘let me get a hold of utilities first.’”
Adams, who skates at the park “probably five or six times a week” and who recently opened a skate shop in the area, said he and his friends wanted lights there for years.
“For years, everybody said they would like to have an option to skate after dark,” Adams said. “Unfortunately, it became kind of a sleeping spot for the homeless community.”
Adams said he “reached out to Lanny, and he was more than happy to get it started, and boy it has really made it awesome.”
The pair of energy-efficient, 151-watt LED lights were installed by Municipal Utilities crews last week, just two days after Adams made his request.
“Lanny called me Monday and we got it all hooked up on Wednesday. There’s one at Moran and Cedar and the other at Broadway and Cedar, facing into the park,” said Municipal Utilities Electric Superintendent Lyndell Coleman.
The park department, Corcimiglia said, typically is “hesitant about putting lighting up, because when you create a shadow, you create an opportunity for people to be not very friendly.
“With the way those two things are positioned, it’s just shining into the skate park. It lights up and doesn’t create shadows.”
Adams is happy because “the guys can stay down there late,” speaking about the extended hours since the lights were installed.
“We put them on a photo control to come on, and there’s a timer that takes them off at 11 p.m.,” said Coleman of the lights, which the park department will rent from Municipal Utilities.
“I talked to five or six different people who were down there one evening and they said it was awesome. They didn’t have to shut down at dark,” Corcimiglia recalled.
“I’m so excited about the lights,” added Downtown Poplar Bluff Director Morgan McIntosh. “I think it’s great that the skate park can have longer hours because of them.”
Adams said, on a typical day, the skate park sees “anywhere between 35 and 40 people” using it, so the addition of lights is a big thing.
The addition comes in time for a skate competition scheduled for May 22 at the park.
The “Fifty Fifty Fest” will be a free event featuring not only a skate competition, but also live music, food trucks and vendors.
“It will be open to anybody that wants to come, at all ages,” Adams said. “We’ll have a section for 13 and under and 14 and up, and it will probably start around 1 p.m.”