Sparta Skate Park Closed Due To Collapsing Building

Sparta has temporarily closed the town skate park as the next-door Old Sparta Hardware Building began to crumble Monday night.

City Administrator Tonya Tindle said the bricks are falling off the building and the back corner has begun to fall. She said the city has also closed South Church Street and T-DOT has closed one lane of traffic on Bockman Way.

“We just feel like it being adjacent to the skateboard park, nobody needs to be in there,” Tindle said. “We don’t want the building to finally give way before structural engineers or demo crews can get in there and safely take it down. So we need everybody to stay out of the skateboard park and off the sidewalk in that area.”

Tindle said the city has deemed the structure a “dangerous building,” giving the property owner 45 days to remedy the situation. She said the owner plans to fix the structure this week, but it will take several days to haul off debris.

She said she is confident the popular skate park will not be closed long-term.

“There’s all kinds of kids that just love that park down there,” Tindle said. “You see them walking down the street with their skateboards, skating down the street to get there. So, it’s used quite often.”

Tindle said the property owner was in the building Monday night when bricks fell and left a hole in the side of the structure. She said the corner crumbled and fell at around 5:00am Tuesday morning.

“It’s progressively falling,” Tindle said. “I guess as the rain comes and the bricks get heavy, it’s going to fall even faster. We just hope that we can take care of it without too much damage to any of the surrounding infrastructure.”