COOS BAY — Tristen Reasor has trouble wiping the grin off his face these days. The 29-year-old is vice president of Citizens for Bay Area Youth, which recently succeeded in assembling the funding and volunteers to begin work on a new skate park in Mingus Park.

If all goes according to plan, a new 3,000-square-foot facility with two bowls will be ready for skaters by the end of summer.

Reasor plans to put in time on the construction project and then enjoy the fruits of his labor, being an avid skater for the past 20 years.

It’s his knowledge of the area’s skate-park history that may be his most valuable contribution. He grew up in Coos Bay in the days when skateboarders really didn’t have any place to call their own. They would ride along streets and in parks where they were not received kindly by neighbors or police officers.

When the first skate park was built in 1995 or ’96, it was received with great enthusiasm, Reasor said. The thrill quickly wore off.

It was built by a landscape architect who had no experience making skate parks. The result was a facility with numerous flaws and not enough innovation to challenge riders. The problems started with the surface, Reasor said. The architect broom-finished the concrete. The procedure is a standard practice in making sidewalks, but it produces a rough texture that isn’t pleasant for the skater who wipes out.

“It was horrible,” Reasor said. “It would just tear you apart because of the bad finish.”

The park also didn’t offer many challenges. Within a year or two, Reasor had grown tired of it and built a half-pipe in his backyard. He also began traveling outside the area to use other cities’ parks. He made a number of trips to Lincoln City and the Burnside skate park in Portland. His travels also took him up and down the coast and to places like Hood River and Klamath Falls. When Newburg completed its 29,000-square-foot park, the biggest in the state at the time, Reasor said he drove up to it almost every weekend for a few summers.

Meanwhile, Coos Bay’s skate park soon was outclassed by newer ones in Port Orford, Myrtle Point, Reedsport and Florence. Reasor helped build the parks in Port Orford and Myrtle Point and kept out hope that a similar effort could be made in Coos Bay.

The existing skate park was intended to serve as phase one of a larger design, but a succession of organizations failed to make progress. Reasor isn’t quite sure why C-BAY succeeded when others couldn’t. But he is confident the final product will be sound, because skaters will be involved from beginning to end.

“It’s a real specialty field,” he said. “You have to be a skateboarder to build a quality skateboard park.”

He noted the groundbreaking was made possible because so many skateboarders have been willing to donate time and supplies.

“We wouldn’t be able to get a skate park any other way, any time soon,” he said.

He also hopes the first phase of work will spur more donations, leading to expansions. He noted the area where they are building could conceivably support 44,000 square feet of skating surface.

Though he has cut back on his skateboarding — it used to be his principal form of transportation — Reasor still tries to skate three times a week. He often goes to Myrtle Point, Port Orford or Florence, though with rising gas prices, he is looking forward to the day when he can head to Mingus Park.

“It will be well worth it,” he said. “We are going to give these guys something to have fun on for years to come.”

(Staff Writer Alexander Rich covers Coos Bay issues for The World. He can be reached by calling 269-1222, ext. 234; or by e-mailing to arich@theworldlink.com.)