Vancouver to buy, likely demolish Golden Skate roller rink

After 71 years in Clark County, including more than 30 as its only indoor roller rink, Golden Skate is gliding into retirement.

Golden Skate’s owners, John and Janie Wainwright, are selling the land to the city, which wants the property for an expansion of its Public Works Operation Center. The Vancouver City Council on Monday authorized a $1.5 million purchase and sale agreement for the 2.2-acre parcel at 4915 E. Fourth Plain Blvd.

“It’s time to do what has to be done,” said John Wainwright, 78, who bought Golden Skate with his wife in 1984. “It’s time to move on.”

Selling Golden Skate to the city — which likely will tear it down, according to city staff — is a “wonderful solution,” said Janie Wainwright, 69.

“We had this deal with them, and we are happy that we made the deal,” she said last week.

The old, brick building is cracking and becoming unsafe, and its expanse of white maple floors have been sanded so many times there’s not much wear left in them, John Wainwright said.

The couple waved away the notion that the city should try to keep Golden Skate open.

“You would really have to bulldoze it and build a new skating center, and that’s not the responsibility of the city,” Janie Wainwright said.

After a final skating session from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Golden Skate’s doors will quietly close. Following that will be a liquidation sale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. the weekends of June 19 to 21 and June 26 to 28. The cash-only sale will be open to the public, offering items such as skates, skating equipment, a disco ball and lights, snack bar equipment, lockers, the floor, office furniture, and tables and chairs.

Long history

Golden Skate was built in the early 1940s as Holcomb’s Recreation Hall, a skating rink and restaurant by day and ballroom by night. Holcomb’s was surrounded by thousands of tiny, temporary homes for Kaiser Shipyard workers looking for a place to blow off steam on weekend nights during World War II. They found their outlet at Holcomb’s, which had the county’s largest dance floor, measuring 65 by 160 feet.

Janie Wainwright, a Portland native, attended high school dances at Holcomb’s in the early 1960s, when bands such as The Kingsmen, who sang “Louie Louie,” used to perform there. John Wainwright recalled 500 to 600 people packing the dance floor.

“It was incredible,” he said, his face lighting up at the thought of it.

In the 1970s, after the Floyd Holcomb family sold Holcomb’s, the establishment changed hands several times as owners tried to reinvigorate the business with nostalgia dances, billiards, pinball and even Saturday night wrestling.

The Wainwrights bought Golden Skate in 1984. They installed a laser tag area. They taught roller skating. They hosted countless fundraisers for school groups, churches and other organizations.

But slowly, the surrounding neighborhood changed. The children who used to walk to Golden Skate were gone, and the older people who now populated the neighborhood weren’t interested in skating. Nowadays, kids would rather play on their iPads or watch videos than be physically active and socialize, the Wainwrights observed.

Once upon a time, 250 to 300 people would come to Golden Skate on weekend nights. Today, that number has dwindled to less than a hundred. Nevertheless, for years, customers have told the Wainwrights, “I hope you never close.”

“Then why don’t you bring the kids often?” Janie Wainwright asked rhetorically. “Don’t bring them every five or six months and tell us we need to stay open.”

“We have outlived the community,” she concluded.

City needs space

For more than a decade, the city has been asking the Wainwrights about buying Golden Skate. The city’s Operation Center surrounds the property on two sides and leases space from the Wainwrights for employee parking, and storage of vehicles and equipment, said Tim Haldeman, the city’s director of General Services. Expanding the Operations Center is in the master plan, and the Golden Skate property is the key link in executing it, Haldeman said.

“They’re two of the finest people we’ve worked with, ever,” he said last week of the Wainwrights. “They’ve just been professional, sincere and honest.”

Although the Wainwrights are comfortable with their decision to sell, walking away from their business of 31 years is painful. Janie Wainwright hasn’t been able to bring herself to visit Golden Skate since they finalized the deal with the city.

“It’s almost like a death for me,” she said, wiping tears from her cheeks. “We did it for the love of the children and to see these kids grow up. We stayed in it for the kids. We felt we were doing a community service. …That’s why we always tried to make it affordable and enjoyable.”

Wainwright taught competitive skating for almost 45 years, training women, their daughters and eventually their granddaughters. Her own grandchildren grew up at Golden Skate.

John Wainwright said he will miss talking to the younger children, who seemed wise beyond their years, at the rink.

“It’s been quite an education for me,” he said, his eyes brimming.

The Wainwrights, who haven’t taken a trip for three years, plan to travel in their retirement. Janie Wainwright wants to go to Italy, while her husband would like to visit Australia for its exotic wildlife.

Neither, however, envisions lacing up a pair of skates again.