With news that Clark County’s lone ice rink is set to close in August, those in the skating community who call Mountain View Ice Arena home now wait in limbo as developers look to seek funding to build a new rink.
City Bible Church, which purchased the arena in 2006 and has leased it since, recently informed the 20-year-old rink its final day will be Aug. 31. The Vancouver church plans to remodel the building and open an elementary school and gymnasium, which it initially applied for in 2016.
While the announcement has been long in the works, it took the arena’s user groups by surprise.
The rink sees between 2,000 to 3,000 skaters each week, and its absence would send many to look for a new home — or to quit altogether.
That includes the Vancouver Learn to Play Hockey Program, Vancouver Jr. Rangers Youth Hockey, Portland Ice Skating Club, Speed Skating, Sled Hockey for Adaptive Sport Athletes, Special Olympics as well as a men’s hockey league and multiple Clark County schools.
The church does not have permits to start building yet. City Bible still needs pricing and drawings, according to rink owner and church member Bruce Wood.
Wood said efforts to build a new rink have been underway for more than a year.
Estimates for how much it would cost vary.
Ice rink manager Bob Knoerl said it could cost anywhere from $4.5 million to $5 million. Knoerl opened the Sherwood Ice Arena, one of the area’s three arenas, in 2000.
Wood estimates building a new rink in Clark County would cost between $7 million and $8 million, of which $750,000 has already been raised.
Rink users are in the process of forming a nonprofit group called Columbia River Ice Skating Community, which aims to raise the remaining necessary funds.
“It would need the cooperation of the community, with a capital C,” Wood said of the fundraising.
Knoerl estimates a rink would take a minimum of eight months to build.
High cost of upkeep
Making an ice arena profitable is another challenge. Wood said the arena was losing about $1 million a year, largely due to high maintenance and operating costs, before it was bought by City Bible.
In recent years, the rink has turned a small profit due to having its lease substantially discounted by City Bible.
If the rink’s users are displaced in August, some rinkgoers worry there’s simply not enough room at the two other full-size rinks in the Greater Portland area — Sherwood Ice Arena and the Winterhawk Skating Center in Beaverton, Ore.
When Linda Jellison heard about the impending arena closure, the President of the Mountain View Speedskating Club’s first course of action was to call the other arenas in the area. Long commutes to practice are not necessarily a dealbreaker, as some members already travel from as far as Walla Walla.
“With all the other users that will be misplaced, we’ve just got to stand in line,” Jellison said. “We don’t know where we’ll fit in.”
Online petition
A petition circulating online has 754 signatures — 250 more than it did Thursday.
The petition asks for regular communication from City Bible to the user groups and to extend the lease through March 2019.
“This rink is a vital part of the Vancouver and Greater Portland Metro community,” the petition reads. “Children and families will be severely impacted by the loss of this facility.”
Knoerl said Friday he has formally requested to City Bible the lease be extended to March 1, 2019, and is awaiting a response.
Former Olympic figure skater Tonya Price, formerly Harding, still skates at the rink and was present Friday morning for a free skate.
She said she would sign any petition to save the rink.
Some rink regulars have started to weigh other options.
Jackie Chao, a Happy Valley, Ore., resident whose daughters figure skate at Mountain View Ice Arena, collected signatures at the rink Friday morning to add to the online petition.
Her daughters Annika, 8, and Addison, 11, commute from the Portland suburb six days a week for Portland Ice Skating Club and individual practices.
The siblings, who starting skating at age 2, practiced at the Lloyd Center before its ice rink was downsized in a remodel.
With an end date approaching on Vancouver’s arena, the Chaos are weighing their options.
“We’d have to go to Seattle or not skate,” Jackie Chao said. “Basically move if my kids really want to skate. There’s a couple rinks in the area, but they can’t take the influx of skaters if this rink is gone, those rinks are at capacity. There’s not really space.”
Jeff Gilmore began to receive an influx of emails on Sunday after the news broke.
Gilmore, who coaches the under-14 Bantams junior hockey team and participates in the men’s league, thinks his team could cease to exist with no rink.
“There’s talk that we’ll become a pure travel team,” Gilmore said. “I don’t know how you put a team together like that,” with no practice time.
Tanner Hyde put on skates for the first time 2 1/2 years ago at Mountain View Ice Arena. The 14-year-old Mountain View High School student trained sometimes five hours a day to eventually make the Portland Jr. Winterhawks.
Without an arena to practice at, he fears he’ll be passed up.
“If I can’t skate, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make the travel teams I want to,” Hyde said.
