During the past decade, communities across America have spent millions of dollars on skateboard parks, eager to get kids off the street and protect private property. Jim Fitzpatrick, executive director of the International Association of Skateboard Companies, estimates that 1,600 to 1,700 skateboard parks have been built nationwide during the past six years, at an average cost of about $100,000. But the current construction of skateboarding parks can?EUR??,,????'???t keep up with demand, according to professional skateboarders like Rob Dyrdek who complain that finding adequate venues has become increasingly difficult. This lack of venue has many skaters thrashing urban and commercial parks. The problem with street skaters, from a property owner's perspective, is that they damage almost everything they touch. Their boards etch marks into the ground and wear down city benches. Beyond the aesthetic damage, business owners fear the liability skateboarders pose because they could easily hurt themselves or a customer. The problem has escalated to the point that landscape architects now design parks with skateboarders in mind. They make benches shorter, out of tougher materials, and anticipate anything that could be used as a potential runway or obstacle. "We're trying to stay one step ahead of skateboarders, said Perry Cardoza, a landscape architect at Nuvis Landscape Architecture and Planning in Costa Mesa who now design parks using ultratough materials to withstand the abuse from skateboarders. Dyrdek recently took the park shortage into his own hands and formed a nonprofit organization with Vista-based DC Shoes Inc. to build a new breed of skateboard park, which looks like a business park complete with urban benches and concrete obstacles. The first park, in Dyrdek's hometown of Kettering, Ohio, will have steps and handrails instead of the typical concrete bowls and transitioned embankments that fill traditional skate parks.