Almost four years after the Vashon Park District received a King County grant to build an outdoor skatepark, commissioners have voted to move ahead with the project, and construction of a skate bowl at the Burton Adventure Recreation Center (BARC) is expected to begin soon.

The project was conceived nearly a decade ago but has been impeded by considerable delays. Now, those involved say, should everything go as planned, a nearly 8,400-square-foot bowl will be built at the Burton park, providing island skaters with the a venue they have worked toward for many years.

“A bowl provides a unique experience for skaters,” said Jenni Wilke, who is on the board of the BARC Stewardship Council, which supports the park. “Many of the users are really excited to have that in our community.”

Last week, the Vashon Park District convened a special meeting of its commissioners to vote on the bids for the project. Three of the five commissioners attended, voting unanimously to accept the bid from Grindline Skateparks, pending verification of references and due diligence on the part of Elaine Ott, the park district’s executive director.

Grindline, based in West Seattle, has built skate parks throughout the country and abroad and was first hired by the district in 2009 to design plans for the park.

Once completed, the bowl will be amoeba shaped, according to Matt Fluegge, the chief operations officer at Grindline. Similar to a backyard swimming pool, the bowl will have shallow and deep ends and was designed to complement the ramps and street features of the existing indoor skatepark. In a bowl, he noted, skaters do not need to stop, as they do in other skating venues, and are able to do tricks on the edges and up in the air. Grindline is known for its bowls, he added, and given Vashon’s proximity to the company’s offices, those who worked on the project paid extra attention to the bowl’s design — and plan to make use of it themselves.

“Vashon is an easy place for us to get to on the ferry and skate,” he said. “This project was near and dear to our hearts. It’s going to be one of the best bowls in the world.”

Grindline was one of just two companies to bid on the project, Ott said, and came in just below the $75,000 King County grant amount.  The other company’s bid was nearly double that, she added, and Grindline’s experience as skatepark professionals reinforced it as the clear choice.

Checking the company’s references last week, Ott said she was hearing only positive comments about its work regarding project completion, meeting deadlines and staying on budget.

“I have to say that on all levels, their references rave about them,” she said.

Ott said she expects that a contract with Grindline will be signed soon and that construction will begin this month or early next month. Per the bid requirements, the project is to be completed within 60 days, which is essential, as the King County grant expires on Dec. 31 of this year.

At the park district’s request, the BARC Stewardship Council is raising $4,000 to help with the cost of recent project engineering fees. On Monday, just two weeks into the group’s online fundraising effort, they had raised $3,785.

“It’s been really great, and definitely more than just users have contributed. It is nice to see that support from the community,” Wilke said.

Should the group raise funds beyond the requested amount, the money will go toward the online fundraising processing fees and other projects at the park, which includes a disc golf course and BMX bike trails.

The building of the bowl comes at a time when former skate park supervisor Nate Mollison has come back as an extremely active volunteer, something he said he chose to do after the park district switched from offering supervised to unsupervised skates.

“I wanted the park to be safe and not a draw for the wrong activities,” he said.

Now, he is encouraging mentorship among different ages of skaters, something often seen at skateparks, but which has not been prevalent on Vashon, and he has instituted Saturday night skates, which are becoming increasingly popular, drawing kids as young as 7 on up to the early years of high school. In recent weeks, he said, about 20 kids have attended, and he hopes the program continues to grow.

Now, the addition of the bowl can only help those efforts — and other visions for the park for the good of island youth, Wilke said.

Wilke first became involved at the park in 2008, she said, when her son Simon, now 13, started to skate. He and his friends do not do organized sports, but they attend off-island skating competitions together, set goals for new tricks and practice together  much like a team.

Wilke believes that the bowl will serve that group — and countless other skaters — well.

“It is a symbol of commitment the community is showing to a certain demographic, and it will allow us to further develop that park and mentorship program,” she said.

Previously, Wilke tried to obtain a grant for a mentorship program, and was unsuccessful, but  she will try again, she said, in the hopes of strengthening those efforts to address many areas of young skaters’ lives.

“We want a strong anti-drug and alcohol message as well as to promote school,” she said.

BARC volunteers also hope to increase the number of girls who use the park, and once the bowl is complete, intend to host members of the Seattle nonprofit organization Skate Like a Girl, which is expected to come out and run workshops.

Youth are not the only skaters on the island, and Mollison noted that bowl skating is easier on the body than street skating, which may make the bowl more appealing to those who have not been on a skateboard in awhile. Wilke noted her husband Dave is planning on buying new pads and a board, and she expects others roughly his age, who grew up skating bowls, will join him.

“I am excited to see who comes out of the woodwork,” she said.

Indeed, Grindline’s Fluegge said he expects people from near and far will come to the island to skate.

“People go on skate trips and visit as many parks as they can,” he said. “Oregon and Washington are the epicenter of those trips.”

Park officials and volunteers say it has been a long road to get to this place, where the bowl is expected to be built. An outdoor skate park to complement the indoor one was first imagined years ago, and in 2010, there were plans for a larger outdoor skatepark that would have had several features, be constructed in four phases and cost at least $273,000 to complete. When it became clear such a project would be too costly, BARC supporters downsized the plans and refocused their efforts on building a bowl.

Longtime supporters who have dealt with plan revisions, permitting problems and financial constraints at the park district now express some hesitancy that the current project will come to pass. Mollison noted he is cautiously optimistic that plans will proceed, and earlier this summer, when momentum on this project picked up after a long hiatus, Wilke said her son and his friends were having difficulty believing the bowl would be built, as they had been waiting most of their childhoods for it.

At the park district this summer, commissioners voted to spend $20,000 on the project this year, in addition to requesting $4,000 from the BARC stewards. Prior to Ott’s tenure, the park district spent about $88,000, with $29,000 of that coming from grants and community contributions, including money from the BARC stewards, who earlier raised about $10,000 for the project, Wilke said.

Ott, who is overseeing the project, credits those who came before her with doing a considerable amount of work and is looking forward to the project’s completion.

“I am very excited about it,” she said. “The BARC people have put a lot of time, passion and commitment toward seeing this through, as did former park district personnel. It is great to see the whole thing come to fruition.”

For more on BARC’s fundraising effort, see www.gofundme.com/ffwl9g.