Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Duncan Price plays a skateboard guitar during Thursday's third annual art auction for the Houghton Skate Park. About 40 boards were available for bid, with proceeds going to the construction of the park.

HOUGHTON — A skateboard with antlers. A skateboard shaped like fish. A skateboard that also held toilet paper.

Around 40 boards were auctioned off Thursday at the Keweenaw Brewing Company for the final fundraiser for the Houghton Skate Park.

The funds will help determine the final budget for construction of the park, which will be located near the East Houghton Waterfront Park in Houghton. The park has raised more than $200,000, said organizer Alex Aho. Letters on in-kind support from the City of Houghton and local companies have also been sent to the contractor to evaluate the dollar amount.

Many of Thursday’s artists had contributed to the previous two skateboard art auctions, while some had learned about it since and reached out, Aho said.

To make it easier to keep track of boards, they solicited fewer than the 50 and 60 from the first two shows, Aho said.

“Last year we were surging for the $50,000 match (from the Tony Hawk Foundation), and right now we don’t need to raise quite as much, so we wanted to condense it into something smaller,” he said.

The park originally had a first phase goal of $150,000. By the end of the match campaign last year, that had risen to $170,000. Since the campaign ended late enough that construction could not start last year, they combined the planned first and second phases into work that would happen this summer.

Groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled for June, Aho said. The concrete pour should start in July or August, resulting in a skateable park by September.

A standing-room-only crowd wrote down bids for the skateboards, which were mounted on the wall. Some sat and listened to live music, which included a playable skateboard guitar.

The first two years raised $10,000 and $23,000, respectively. If they can raise enough this year, they might be able to add a small expansion, Aho said.

“If it’s something $10,000, $15,000 over that $200,000 goal, we can definitely put it toward expanding the skate park, which is good because our budget is pretty small by skatepark standards,” Aho said. “We’re the second concrete park in the whole Upper Peninsula, so we have a big service area we need to attend to.”

Chris Guibert of Laurium came in planning to spend about $1,000. He’d already secured part of that by buying a board for $300 at the live auction.

“I’m a big fan of art,” he said. “I’m a big advocate of anything that’s doing something for the community. I wanted to donate to the park, and what better way of doing it than to buy a piece of art?”