A Woodstock, New York * couple is set to invest $1 million to get a skateboard park built on Ulster Avenue, a facility Kingston government officials had unsuccessfully tried to get constructed.

Ingrid Dehart and her husband, Arthur Fine, are building the 7,657-square-foot skateboard park in a building that once housed a furniture store and automotive center. The renovated building will also house the couple's retail business, TSX, which stands for T-shirts, skate wear, and extras.

Last year, Kingston city officials and a skateboard committee attempted to devise a plan to build a municipally operated park, but no firm offering materialized. The city began investigating the possibility of a skateboard park after Police Chief Gerald Keller suggested that skateboarding be banned on all sidewalks and streets in the city.

Now construction work at the Ulster Avenue site is progressing on the TSX site, and Dehart said she hopes the park will be built by April.

"I think that this is an activity for young people that is a very challenging activity and, at the same time, very exciting," said Dehart, who now operates a store at the Hudson Valley Mall. "It is a hard enough sport to keep their attention, but it is one that is a very clean sport, too."

Dehart, who also operates a store in Albany, said she believes that there will be less skateboarders out on public streets, parks, and other places when the park is completed.

"We are putting something into the community that will be good for the kids and good for the people who hate the kids out all over the street," Dehart said.

The skateboard park is being designed by a well-regarded company known as Team Pain *. She said that the park will include challenging ramps, including one that is so high that builders will need to raise the roof of the building in order to accommodate it. Besides the skateboard park, a 2,553-square-foot retail shop will be on the site, according to Kingston architect Scott Dutton, who is designing the plans.

It is expected that it will cost skateboarders between $6 and $12 a session to use the park, probably for about two hours, Dehart said. She said the owners are not yet firm on what the price of a session will cost.

Dehart said the park would be staffed by qualified skateboarders who work for TSX.

"Our park will always be supervised so that the kids will have a safe environment," Dehart said.

This article was originally titled "Raising the roof" by Paul Kirby, and was published in the 3/1/2004 edition of the Daily Freeman.

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