After six years, a vision comes to reality

So you think your job has its weird

moments?

Try telling people that you design skateboard

parks.

Stan Byers, whose work includes design

of the new Rattlesnake Mountain Skatepark

at Reno's Mira Loma Park, spent six years

juggling the desires of hand-wringing

lawyers, hot-dogging skateboarders and

hard-driving construction workers.

His handiwork, a 40,000-square-foot

skatepark that's the biggest on the West

Coast, opened last month.

But exactly how does one go about the

business of designing a skatepark?

Well, the 41-year-old Byers explained a

few days ago, you start with a background as

a skateboarder yourself.During the late

1970s, he managed a skatepark in the Reno

area.When he saw seven years ago that the

city planned a facility for skateboarders at

Mira Loma Park, he decided to offer

his advice.

"I had some experience and had seen

what was possible," Byers said.

One thing led to another, and he became

the primary designer for the facility. After he

worked five years as a volunteer, the city suggested

that he take a fee a step that

moved Byers into the ranks of professional

skatepark designers.

Like a golf course designer, Byers tried to

use the site's topography to best advantage.

He knew he wanted to combine some features

from traditional skateparks with unique

elements that would make the Mira Loma

facility noteworthy.

He started with a half dozen meetings

with local skateboarders to learn what they

wanted from the park.

From their thoughts, Byers began

designing a facility that's actually two parks

in one. The south side of the facility replicates

the features skateboarders search out

along city streets rails and ramps, for

instance. The north side with its deep bowls

is a tribute to the early days of skateboarding

when boarders sought out empty swimming

pools to sharpen their skills.

But getting that design onto the site

proved challenging.

In his day job, Byers is creative director

for the Rose-Glenn Group, an advertising

agency in Reno. He brings the same technique

to his skatepark projects (along with

Mira Loma, he's designed three others in

the region) that he uses for advertising

design a pencil and paper for a quick

sketch. The details are filled out later, often

through computerized illustration programs.

Byers said he completely redesigned the park

seven times. Each design required hundreds

of drawings and weeks of work to

reflect rounds of changes. A high water

table, for instance, demanded that the deep

bowls be relocated and built on raised concrete

platforms.

"You have to have some challenges.

Otherwise, why build it?" said Byers.

The construction crews who poured concrete

to build the facility also faced challenges

with the park's many sweeping curves,

half pipes and curved platforms. Even with

the hundreds of control points provided by

the design drawings, modifications sometimes

were made on the fly.

That, Byers said, taught him the value of

maintaining good relations on the job site.

"I always tried to be the guy who had

doughnuts or a 12-pack of pop on a hot

day," he said. "If I had a change, I wanted

them to welcome me."

Along with his design fee, Byers was

rewarded for his work with the privilege of

becoming one of the first skateboarders to

swoop through the park's curves the day it

opened.

He's rewarded, too, by watching the

crowds of skateboarders who flock to the

park daily.

One of them, Shawn Fosnight, drove up

from his Sacramento home the other day

after he'd heard glowing reports about the

big new park. His judgment? "It's pretty fun.

It's definitely a lot better than most."