PORTLAND — Portland is about to become home to a ski slope even though the city is miles from the nearest mountain.

Seacoast Scaffold & Equipment Corp. starts work today on building a ski slope in Monument Square for the Downtown Showdown, sponsored by Sunday River and Sugarloaf.

The company is up to the task, having erected ski slopes at New York’s Rockefeller Plaza for Today Show segments on the winter Olympics. This is the third year that the company has participated in Portland’s Downtown Showdown.

General Manager Lincoln Fuller says there will be stairway access to a mountain top that’s 20-feet high. On Friday, freestyle skiers and snowboarders will bust a move on the mountain. The event is free to the public.