Susan Jansen sat in the lobby of the Lawrence Arts Center Sunday, waiting for her daughter, Erin, to come out of a dance rehearsal. As Erin walked down the stairs to meet her mother she sighed, remembering what she used to do on Sunday afternoons. Up till a few months ago the Jansens drove into Kansas City so that Erin could practice ice dance.
The Jansens belong to a subculture of figure skaters and their parents that outsiders might find obsessive. Erin’s mother home-schooled her for two years so that she could skate more sessions at the far away ice rink.
“She wanted to skate and so there wasn’t really another option.” said Jansen.
The trip between the Jansen’s home and Ice Sports Kansas City where Erin skated took 45 minutes and with many skating sessions starting around 6:00 am the families options were few.
“We would have had to get up at 3:00 in the morning.” said Jansen.
Once Erin was started Internet schooling she could practice during the day with fewer people to compete with for space on the ice. Not to mention the extra sleep she and her mother enjoyed.
But the distance, the cost of skating, and Erin’s desire for a more active social life brought her back to normal school and out of skating.
The City of Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department has looked into a new building program that would solve the Jansen’s problem.
In the recently released Partners for Lawrence Athletics and Public Youth Feasibility Study, the PLAY committee conducted a survey of 412 random Lawrence residents and found that when provided with potential new building plans the most respondents wanted the department to fund a new ice rink. The list of potential plans contained 13 new indoor recreation facilities and 33 percent of the surveyed favored the rink.
The proposed rink would be approximately 40,000 square feet and cover seven to nine acres of land. In that space there would be a single hockey sized ice rink, 200 feet by 85 feet, locker rooms, and seating for up to 1,000 spectators.
The PLAY Committee found problems with the proposed rink, however. The rink would cost a staggering $10.6 million. In 2006 the Parks and Recreation actual budget only included $595,000 in total expenditures for maintenance and new projects. The 2007 budget gave only $3.4 million for the entire department to operate on. The committee’s research also found that the rink would not likely be able to make enough money to pay for its day-to-day operation, much less recoup the cost of building it.
Instead of building the costlier indoor rink suggested by the survey, the PLAY Committee recommends that the city look into a much cheaper, outdoor, seasonal ice rink. Crown Center in Kansas City has run an outdoor ice rink during the winters. Oklahoma City has a pair of outdoor ice rinks as well. But both of these cities already support a number of indoor ice rinks.
“With that population you had better not build.” Said Dmitri Logoutine, owner of Ice Challenge Enterprises.
Ice Challenges runs two outdoor rinks in the Oklahoma City area and contracts out equipment to other individuals and cities as far away as Kentucky.
Logoutine suggested that the PLAY Committee was right in their decision to support an outdoor rink over and indoor facility. On top of the inevitable problems posed by Lawrence’s lower population as compared to other cities with ice rinks, Logoutine suggested that the city would find an outdoor rink more suitable to their needs.
Ice Challenges normally builds outdoor rinks at 60 feet by 100 feet, roughly half the size of a normal, hockey style, ice rink. Logoutine stressed that this size was merely a suggestion that any size or shape could be fashioned.
“When you are talking about outdoor, you become an artist.” said Logoutine.
Outdoor ice rinks cost less than a tenth of what an indoor facility would run. A city looking to open up the construction and operation of the rink to an outside company, such as Ice Challenges, could expect for bids to start at $100,000 to $200,000. All of the necessary equipment could be purchased for $200,000 or a little more, should the city decided to run the rink on its own.
“I would be surprised if someone found the project quoted over $500,000.” said Logoutine.
Another strength Logoutine sees in outdoor ice rinks is their mobility. An outdoor rink can be set up in about a week and it takes a bit longer for the ice to freeze. Any open area with sufficient power and water can be transformed into an ice rink. One of the ice rinks Ice Challenges runs in Oklahoma City is in a park downtown and the Ice Terrace in Kansas City is in the heart of Crown Center.
Outdoor rinks usually open in November, as the weather gets colder. Ice Terrace at Crown Center will open its season on November 2. That makes building an outdoor rink to be used this year a little out of the question, but Logoutine sees next year as a real possibility.
That hope for next year excites Erin Jansen and her mother.
“I think there are other people who don’t know who would enjoy it.” said Jansen.
For now the Jansen’s will have to continue their long trips to ice rinks in other towns.