LOCKPORT - The city may have a skateboard facility by summer, according to Youth Board Chairman John D. Craig and Common Council President John Lombardi III.

They said Monday that a not-for-profit organization set up last year to raise money for the project has acquired 12 skateboard ramps and enough chain-link fence to encircle the 100-by-800-foot space marked out in Outwater Park for the facility.

Lombardi said the material was purchased last week from a skateboard facility in Wheatfield that is going out of business. Craig said the purchase almost wiped out the $5,000 raised last year by the Lockport Community Recreation Committee, of which he is chairman.

"We got a really nice deal on them," said Craig, who estimated the treated wood ramps would have cost about $40,000 new and new fencing would have cost as much as $13,000.

Kathleen Granchelli, executive director of the YWCA of Niagara and a member of the not-for-profit Recreation Committee, said the condition of the ramps was checked by Chris Naugle, owner of Phatman skateboard shops and another committee member.

"They're almost new," Granchelli said. At present the ramps are being stored at Lombardi's business, Overhead Door Co.

Lombardi said a plan to have volunteer labor pave the site last year fell through, but more plans are in the works. He said the city can supply asphalt milled off West Avenue last year to provide a base, although concrete may have to be purchased.

"If we can put the concrete down, we'll have some semblance of a skateboarding facility this year," Craig said.

He wrote a grant application about two weeks ago for a $20,000 grant from the Tony Hawk Foundation, which helps build skateboarding facilities. The city applied for a $400,000 state grant last year for that and other Outwater Park improvements but hasn't received a response from Albany.