Construction has been ongoing at the future site of the Rio Valley community in El Paso’s Upper Valley, and crews this week are working on a concrete drainage area that will serve double duty. The approximately 80 by 35 foot area will also be used as a skate-park and has been designed with these dual uses in mind.
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| Design of the combination drainage area/skatepark at Rio Valley in the Upper Valley. |
“The philosophy behind our inclusion of this improvement in our park is that we wanted a park that parents would see as attractive with facilities that could help keep kids entertained,” states Scott Winton of Winton Associates, the developer of the 62-acre Rio Valley neighborhood.
“Since the park area also serves as a drainage facility and since we were going to be pouring concrete, it made sense to make it multi-purpose.”
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| Rio Valley's "Main Street" ends at the community's Central Park, at the far end. |
The skatepark was designed by longtime skating advocate Paul Zimmerman, one of the founding board members of the El Paso Skatepark Association (
www.elpasoskatepark.org), a local nonprofit organization. The association advocates for high-quality designed skateparks, citing studies showing one in seven children and teenagers rides a skateboard.
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| The community is located in El Paso's Upper Valley. |
The Rio Valley development is located at the northwest corner of Borderland Road and Westside Road, west of Doniphan. It is billed as a “small village” that will make multiple housing types available and which will also have a “Main Street” with different retail, restaurant, and office uses.
The development should be ready for home construction by January 2014. The new drainage/skatepark area is being built by Bain Construction.
