Some University students enter Urban 9 skate shop only to leave bruised and bloodied.These students, who once went to Perkins Road to use the public skateboard park now under construction, head to Urban 9 for their chance to drop into a pipe and earn their scars.Kristi Williams, spokeswoman at the Recreation and Park Commission for East Baton Rouge Parish, said the Perkins Road skate park construction will add an extreme action park to the facility.Construction on the park, which costs $650,000 of the parish’s nearly $2.5 million overall action park budget, started two weeks ago. BREC hasn’t set a completion date, Williams said. The Perkins Road park renovations, which also include football and baseball fields and a BMX park, total $4.5 million, according to BREC.Meanwhile the Urban 9 store looks no bigger than an average apartment living room, but between its graffiti-covered walls lays something essential to the University skateboarding scene.Urban 9 houses a unique 15-by-18 foot minipipe built from wall-to-wall directly into the tiny Baton Rouge business’ shop floor. The minipipe gives University students a suitable substitute for honing their skills.”I’ve been to skate shops all across the country, but Urban 9’s miniramp is the only one I’ve ever seen built right into the store,” said Mike Griffin, political science senior.Griffin has skated in Baton Rouge for 11 years and said the Perkins Road construction affects all of the local skaters.”Urban 9’s ramp gives the kids somewhere to learn, and they need that now without a park,” Griffin said.Williams said until construction is complete, BREC provides a few ramps at the Church Street Park in Zachary.With or without the park, Griffin said he goes to Urban 9 at least once a week to skate and hang out.”I literally tie my skateboard to my bike with bungees and go ride for 45 minutes between classes,” Griffin said.Griffin said the store gives University skaters somewhere to practice outside of the Quad and offers the local driving force to the skateboarding scene, said Urban 9 owner Reno Broussard.Broussard has run Urban 9’s Government Street location for almost 15 years and kept a minipipe in the store for the last five.”The ramp just brings people together to skate at any level … like someone who’s a little more advanced or just some kid learning to drop in,” Broussard said. “They’re just all caught up in the mix.”His shop’s limited room makes the minipipe smaller than normal ramps, but it’s still “somewhere to skate and learn,” Broussard said.Broussard said the University has been vital to his business with students from out of town coming to Baton Rouge and needing a place to skate.Location gives him an advantage in attracting these University boarders because Urban 9 is only five minutes from campus in Midcity, “the heart of Baton Rouge,” Broussard said.”Being close to campus, this part of the city has a lot of soul,” Broussard said. “To me, it’s what the real Baton Rouge is.”Broussard said he started the shop simply because he felt an interest in skateboarding and wanted to bring it to Baton Rouge.”Skateboarding wasn’t even on the map in 1993, 1994,” Broussard said. “No one was really paying attention to it. There was just a need for skateboarding in this town.”He said the University helps keep the skateboarding scene going, but current construction on BREC’s skate park hurts the skateboarding scene for the younger crowd.”The older guys can get around a little better whereas those kids have no place to skate except their driveway or maybe a parking lot where they’re probably getting kicked out of,” Broussard said.University students like Darek Jackson, political science senior, stick mainly to the streets and Urban 9 for skating until the new park opens.Broussard said he prides himself on his store, but he realizes service only can do so much in this economy.”We’re providing a product you can live without, I guess unless you skateboard,” Broussard said. “But when times are tough, people still need to have activities, things to do to get their minds off of whatever it may be.”He said he realizes students need something to occupy their time, so he has some simple advice to help them cope.”If you’re out skateboarding, you’re probably not thinking about a bad economy,” Broussard said.  —-Contact Peter Hubbs at [email protected]