To make way for a new emergency communications tower, the skate park located behind the Madison Arts Barn was taken down on Oct. 5. Now the town, the Beach & Recreation Department, and Friends of Madison Youth are working together to find a new home for the park.

The new emergency communications tower is part of an infrastructure upgrade designed to improve radio signal across the town. The new tower will replace a smaller, pre-existing tower behind the Arts Barn according to First Selectman Tom Banisch, who said this is the ideal location.

“There is a tower back there now and they were looking at a couple different places down here, but we have an issue with the flood plain, so this new tower being up behind the Arts barn puts it further out of the flood plane,” he said.

Due to the increased size of the tower, the skate park had to be taken down. Banisch said the park was disassembled and moved to the Surf Club, a possible new home for the park.

“We are hoping to rebuild it at the Surf Club,” he said. “The parts are going to be stored down there, but they are not going to be accessible. We don’t want anybody using them because there are half pipes and things that even laying on the ground kids might want to use. We are really going to try to dissuade them from doing that because it is not safe if it is not put together.”

Banisch said they are currently scouting locations for the park at the Surf Club.

“We were talking about a bunch of different things and I was thinking about somewhere around Academy School because there is a playground there, but then the people from the Arts Barn came up with the idea of putting it at the Surf Club,” he said. “I think it is a great idea.”

Banisch said he hopes the skate park will be rebuilt by the spring, but the town has to determine how to pay for the construction. Banisch said the town is currently investigating how much paving or surface prep might cost before the skate park could be reassembled.

“The problem is we have nothing in the budget for it, so it is going to be a matter of how we pay for it,” he said. “If it is down over the winter and we are able to rebuild it in time for the spring, that would be our goal.”