Photo Credit: St. George Park Planning
In November 2018, St. George, Utah—the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the U.S., according to new estimates from the census bureau—opened the Snake Hollow Bike Park. The project, from the initial idea in 2014 to the opening of the park, however, was deliberate and well-researched. According to Jeff Peay, Deputy Director of Park Planning for the city, that approach was the key to success.
“Research is almost more important than the construction. To understand what you’re really going to get, what you’re going to need, and how to keep the park maintained is a huge part of it,” he says. “We’ve got our own designers, and we managed the construction to ensure that whatever we design gets built the way it should be because, a lot of times, you get lost in the middle and you don’t end up with what you design.”
The Right Team
Peay says that since the city’s Leisure Services Department had never built a bike park before, he and Mark Goble—landscape architect and project manager, who worked with him—had to learn a lot about it. They reached out to experts who had the right experience and came up with a master-plan concept that identified certain elements the two wanted for the park. They then put out a Statement of Qualifications (SOQ) to professional design consultants. Once that group was shortlisted, the list was narrowed to three or four possibilities.