CONCRETE RESULTS VALLEY'S SKATERS CAN'T WAIT FOR FIRST BOARD PARK TO OPEN.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

They've been banned by business, chased off park benches, run out of malls and slapped with $100 fines.

Now San Fernando Valley skateboarders, renowned for ``ollies'' and high jinks across city bus stops and planters, have been blessed with their very own city skateboard park - a Los Angeles first.

And for hundreds of teens who've slithered through the fence at the yet-to-be-opened Pedlow Field Skate Park in Encino, it's ollie ollie in come free.

``Mom, there's pros in there,'' exclaims Blake Foster, 15, of Tarzana before rejoining a dozen young men performing a rolling ballet of stunts within 9,000 square feet of concrete on the north side of Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area.

``I just board-slid the third rail - it's the best.''

Foster, a one-time Huggies diaper baby and childhood actor turned Blue Power Ranger, cruises the deck, pivots his Vertex board, plunges into the pit, launches atop a rail - sideways - and makes a perfect rolling exit.

``Duuuude!''

Though other cities built skateboard parks after a recent state law freed cities from liability lawsuits, Los Angeles was slow to provide a home for its boarders.

But Recreation and Parks Department officials were determined to build an arena that simulated the cloppity skateboard antics at parking lots, strip malls, curbs - and any surface suitable for a fast ``deck'' with polyethylene wheels.

Built at a cost of $230,000 - one-sixth the price of the original design - the new park will sport the concrete obstacle course, grass, picnic areas, portable toilets, parking and a canopy of towering sycamores. It officially will open Feb. 17.

The fully staffed park, open until sundown, could eventually double the maze in a second, undetermined phase.

``We went out in the skating community and asked, What do you want?'' said parks department landscape architect and property manager Virginia Hatley. ``And they said: We want a street skating park - with steps and rails and planters and walls - like skating into a parking lot at Vons.''

Enter Councilwoman Laura Chick, who opted for such a park when others at City Hall turned skittish.

``I'm thrilled about this,'' Chick said Tuesday. ``They couldn't find anywhere else in the city to put it, and more importantly, they couldn't find another council member who was interested.

``This is a win-win from every aspect: Finally, we're making the world safe with this facility, rather than have the kids skating on public streets.''

However, the kids might do that anyway. Many say the unopened park can barely accommodate the dozens of interlopers now using it - not to mention the skateboard stampede when it opens.

``I think it's too small,'' said Irvin Hernandez, 13, of Reseda, just before tossing his board over the fence. ``Sometimes there's 50 to 100 kids in there when you get out of school.

``It's crazy.''

Nonetheless, everyone says that park officials got it right - mostly.

``I like it,'' said Alex Ford, 18, a clerk at Valsurf in North Hollywood, which has sold skateboards since 1962. ``It was cool; the layout was good.''

No more hassles, no more getting kicked out of parking lots at 3 a.m., no more skateboarding tickets. Foster is so excited about the park he will open one of his own - Blake Foster's Drop-In.

``It's about time the city of Los Angeles put in a free skate park,'' said his mother, Pat Foster, 47. ``It keeps the kids out of trouble.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box, map

Photo:

(1 -- color) Jamie Jacobson, 17, of Encino goes upside-down for a hand- plant at the new Pedlow Field Skate Park, which officially will open Feb. 17.

(2) Andrew Rios, 12, of Granada Hills flies off a 5-foot bank at the skate park opening soon in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area in Encino.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

Box: PEDLOW FIELD SKATE PARK

Map: Pedlow Field Skate Park