By Curmudgeon
Looking through back copies of the Standard-Examiner for the last few days, eagerly seeking some good news for Ogden City [to take the edge off Hizzonah's latest antics and name-calling melt-down regarding the Marshall White Center pool closing and such like], came across this Jeff DeMoss story:
• Rails open at The JibyardFrom the story:
OGDEN -- Skiers and snowboarders who suffer from snow withdrawal in the off-season have a new option to help satisfy their cravings. Three local adrenaline junkies have opened The Jibyard, an indoor ski and snowboard park.... in the former Browning Arms shooting range at 2450 Grant Ave....The owners did most of the building themselves, scavenging the downtown neighborhood for materials they could convert to better use:
The Jibyard is named for the growing sport of "jibbing," which generally refers to using such man-made features as rails and tables to perform tricks, jumps and "just dink around," said Brad Geiger, who opened the park in May along with partners Mike White and Weston Charlesworth.
The Jibyard's design is as unique as the business itself. The interior is dominated by large, weathered wooden beams laced with barbed wire (well out of the range of riders, of course), and the owners hired artists to paint graffiti panels for the walls. Geiger, White and Charlesworth... gathered most of the items found inside from the surrounding area downtown. Those include old camping trailers and buses the three are refurbishing into "office space," and the wooden beams. "We built the entire substructure by cleaning up junk from a five-block radius," Geiger said....The owners drew on financial support from family and were helped by winning a new-business-plan competition for a $5000 start-up grant from Ogden City:
...which provided the required down payment for bank financing to build the park. "That funding allowed that to happen," he said. "That was huge."They certainly have it priced right: twenty bucks for a full day pass [that's up to 15 hours use]. Geiger thinks "It's the least expensive full day of entertainment in town." He may well be right. [Certainly the pricing is a lot more attractive than what I-Fly is asking for mere moments in a its wind-tunnel ride.]
Good to see a new business open in a largely blighted area downtown. And the environmentalist in me likes the ingenuity involved in the owners' scrounging materials and putting them to new use in their building. Good on 'em. [Hizzonah, Mayor Godfrey, has not yet attacked Mr. Geiger and his party for running up water costs and sewer fees by their environmental approach to recycling. I expect it's only a matter of time, though....]
Hope the business does well. Seems like a plus for downtown.
