The return of the Taz

After closing in 2001 and multiple
delays, the skate park prepares to finally
open its doors next month as a mammoth multipurpose sports complex

THIS SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION: Inside the Taz

by PATRICK LEJTENYI
photos by
RACHEL GRANOFSKY

It’s been a long time coming, but finally, after almost a decade, the Taz Mahal skateboard, inline and BMX park is re-opening.

Not that it was easy, quick or without a fair amount of grumbling. After being closed down and destroyed in 2001, to make way for the Bibliothèque Nationale on Berri and de Maisonneuve E., the Taz owners were assured a swift rebirth, on the island of Montreal and with plenty of government support. Two out of three isn’t too bad. The new location, at 8931 Papineau, between Émile-Journault and Lecocq north of Highway 40, is on a massive 300,000-square-foot lot next to the Miron quarry, now officially known as the 192-hectare Complexe environnemental de St-Michel. The building itself is enormous: 83,000-plus square feet of flat surfaces, speed lines, ramps and concrete. Built from scratch, with government largess to the tune of $13-million, it’s an impressive, sprawling, multi-levelled and environmentally friendly place.

“We want to make it the Whistler of skate parks,” Philippe Jolin, the Taz’s communications and marketing guy, tells me on a recent visit. On a tour, he shows me around the skate park’s floor plan, the adjacent Roulodôme, where everything from roller derby to roller hockey to roller basketball will be played, a live music and backstage area, conference rooms, offices and a multimedia room, where young riders will learn how to manipulate and enhance photos. The entirely WiFi space will also contain a pro shop, a healthy snack bar and a parents’ area. And when the Complexe environnemental de St-Michel completes its planned conversion into a fully functioning park in a few years—said to be the second biggest in the city, after Mount Royal—the possibilities will be even greater for a whole-spectrum sports facility. They plan to open by March 28.

Even unfinished, through the dust and noise of circular saws and hammering and blowtorches, the untrained eye can see that a lot of thought has gone into the place. As has sweat, meticulous planning and no small amount of love.

TESTING THE GOODS:
Casey McDonald (on board) and Pierre Bérubé

Room to ride

For skateboarders and their inline and BMX-riding cousins, the far room on the building’s north side is where they will do their thing. Visitors will enter through south-facing doors, walk through a now-white corridor that will soon be covered in graffiti, past the snack bar and waiting area and into the 26,000 square feet of floor space dedicated to riders.

Seven modules and a speed track share the floor. Along the north wall is the BMX module, and with it a grind spine; on the east, the skateboarders have their quarter pipe, with Plexiglas-covered holes cut into it to let sunshine flow through from the wall’s floor to ceiling window, along with steps and grind rails. In the middle, inliners have a large, semi-circular riser, complete with obstacles. On the west wall is another drop-in. And at the northeast corner is a kiddie area where impressionable youth can imitate what their older brethren accomplish. Jolin says there are also plans to convert some space to an outdoor park.

On the mezzanine, two masonite-covered pools will serve as bowls, and BMXers will take advantage of a nearby flatland surface. Jolin says the mezzanine will also host a VIP and media viewing area. Multipurpose indeed.

Signature look

The entire design springs from the fertile mind of skate park creator Dan Vezina. One of the founders of the original Taz, Vezina has been building skate parks for years, with dozens under his belt. As owner Spinworks, a skatepark design company, and co-owner of Brossard’s South Parc, Vezina is arguably the best builder the city has. Despite his past association with the Taz, he has no ownership stake in the current incarnation, and plans to step away from the project once his work there is done and get to work building other parks around the province. Jolin, however, is clearly happy with what he calls “the Dan Vezina signature.”

“Everything I ever do is individual,” Vezina says. “Everything is one of a kind, there are no recycled, old ideas.” The “signature,” he says, are touches of “added comedy and bizarre elements,” like the plexiglass windows in the skateboard quarter pipe.

Another element of fun is the crew he’s hired to build the Taz’s obstacles. They are among the city’s skateboarding best, including Eric Mercier, Casey Mcdonald, Carl Labelle and Phil Beauséjour. Not only does Vezina know and like them, but he relies on their eyes and expertise to find trouble spots and make on-the-fly adjustments to the obstacles and their layout. “I picked workers who are fun to be around as much as for their skill,” he says. “Good ideas and good attitudes breed creativity…. Everything I do is a work in progress. I’d say, 80 per cent of the time, we re-interpret the design on-site. Why should we be blocked by a 3D design? We improve as we go along, and I rely on their input.”

The crew started working together in mid-December, before breaking for the holidays and returning to the site in mid-January. And while the building stage is progressing well, they say, the lead-up to the Taz’s opening contained its share of controversy, at times getting ugly.

EXPERTS AT WORK: The Taz crew

Open doors with open arms

The long delay between the closing of the original Taz and the opening of the new one, a delay Jolin blames on the machinations of city bureaucracy and other factors beyond the control of Taz co-founder and general manager Michel Comeau, was seen in whispering circles around the city as something far fishier—without any evidence to back it up. The Taz project and Comeau personally were slagged by anonymous message board posters at local skater forum islandproductions.org, and the owners of the now-closed Orkus skate park in the Town of Mount Royal wondered why money was going to the Taz and not to a privately financed and run park like theirs.

Vezina, who stayed largely out of the fray, says the whole fight was “completely silly. I have the attitude that the more skate parks there are, the better.” But Jolin says the haters were way off.

“Michel worked for three or four years for nothing,” he says. Plans for the new Taz were ready to go as early as 2002 or 2003, but were tied down by red tape. He thinks the idea that anyone got rich off the delay is preposterous. “Nobody is doing this for money,” he says.

Despite the rumours, most people seem genuinely excited at the prospect of the Taz’s rebirth. And all, Jolin says, are welcome.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE
FINAL OPENING DATE, RATES AND
SCHEDULES, SEE TAZ.CA.