Park and Planning: Ice Skating Rink Not an Option
By Silver Springer • Mar 14th, 2007 • Category: Business and Economic Development, Real Estate
In a surprise decision, Montgomery County — Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission made the consensus that it does not support the planned ice skating rink as part the future Silver Spring Civic Center. The decision is in conflict with that of Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board, the primary community group representing the Silver Spring area. Members learned of the decision at a recent advisory board meeting.
The message related to the Advisory Board was that green space is preferred in place of the ice skating rink. The Advisory Board supports the ice skating rink and is urgently requesting to speak with the department of planning. Glenn Kreger is head of the Silver Spring branch of the planning department. Machado and Silvetti Associates of Boston is the architect of the civic center.
Back in 2005 the civic center was threatened with cuts by the County Council at that time because it was said to be $4 million over budget. Removing the skating rink, concert pavilion as well as reducing the civic building’s square footage was suggested to keep the project on budget. After a wide spread community uproar the plans to cut the civic center amenities were dropped and the council pledged to find ways of funding the project as originally planned.
The decision by the department of planning has already sparked another backlash from some community members, throwing another wrench into a project that was suppose to break ground this summer after being delayed from last year.
In addition, according to councilmember George Leventhal, the civic center may be delayed because of design issues, opening up the opportunity for the building to become LEED accredited, a system by the U.S. Green building Council that qualifies environmentally friendly green buildings. Montgomery County recently pasted legislation requiring all public and private developments submitted after FY 2008 to be at least LEED certified.
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Your article concerning the proposed ice rink in Downtown Silver Spring concerns a pending site plan. The Planning Board has not considered the site plan as yet and no hearing date has even been scheduled. A formal staff report will be prepared and made public prior to the Board hearing. It will contain the staff recommendations regarding the civic building, veterans memorial, ice rink and town square design. At this point, however, there is no formal departmental position on these matters.
At a Development Review Committee meeting earlier this week, some members of the staff encouraged the applicant to consider replacing the ice rink and hardscaped plaza with a village green. (We also conveyed the same input to the applicant several months ago.) We are awaiting their response. The Planning Board will consider whatever plan the applicant chooses to proceed with. This could be the plan as submitted or a revised plan.
I always felt the ice skating rink was a waste of valuable space. It’s more expensive to build. Furthermore, how many people in the Silver Spring area know how to ice skate…let alone own a pair of ice skates?
Ice-skating sucks.
I think they should build an ultimate fighting cage instead.
Forget the ice skating rink. We need more open outdoor space to sit our fannies during Jazzfest.
I’m not in favor of the ice skating rink. I wish there was a way that the average person could have had a hand in developing the ideas of how to use that space other than attending the county meetings, which are never at a conveniant time. Like, for example, a mass mailer to all downtown Silver Spring-area residents (okay, expensive I know). Or perhaps just a small little flyer directing people to a weblink where they could vote (okay, not everyone has access to the internet, but something along those lines).
Sure, build the civic center…maybe it will mean some semblance of a governmental presence in Silver Spring outside of the police and fire department. But the ice skating rink and the veteran’s memorial are such fuddy duddy ideas. Why do we need a memorial? Sure it’s appropriate and all, but it’s so somber and will not likely suit the tenor of the rest of that downtown area. Can we put it somewhere else?
Green space, what a concept. Does anyone know the citzens’ advisory committee’s justification for supporting an ice rink? The members of the committee must not have spent any actual time in DTSS. The popularity of The Turf is proof of what the community actually wants and needs there. Now, imagine if that area was nicely maintained grass and some small trees along the perimeter? Urban heaven.
Ice skating rink in winter, turf in summer. What would make it so difficult to do that, people? We have SEASONS! Let’s take advantage of them.
“I wish there was a way that the average person could have had a hand in developing the ideas of how to use that space other than attending the county meetings, which are never at a convenient time. Like, for example, a mass mailer to all downtown Silver Spring-area residents (okay, expensive I know). Or perhaps just a small little flyer directing people to a weblink where they could vote (okay, not everyone has access to the internet, but something along those lines).”
Agreed, anyone can go to the public libraries and use internet access there. It also helps to ask the right questions.
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Comment by Pennster
Made Wednesday, 14 of March , 2007 at 3:46 pm
Ice skating rink in winter, turf in summer. What would make it so difficult to do that, people? We have SEASONS! Let’s take advantage of them.
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I have no idea, we have not had a lengthy discussion about that option. It would be a good compromise.
The real issue at hand here is the concrete hardscape pavilion. Does anybody really want that?
Seasons? Really? We had, roughly, two weeks of actual winter this year. The rest of it seems to be a protracted (and greatly appreciated) autumn. This is central Maryland. How often do we really get a cold winter, 1 out of every 5 or so? It’s going to take some big chillers to keep ice in an outdoor area when the ambient temps are in the 50’s and higher.
Grass. Green space. That’s all I’m sayin’.
Outdoor ice skating rinks are unprofitable and outdated in our warming Washington weather. Both the Bethesda and Kentlands outdoor rinks failed. The county should not subsidize the rink when desperate improvemnets are needed to local parks in the area.
Given the number of people who enjoy the astro-turf it seems there is a big need for green space in the downtown SS area. Small parks in DC (ie. Mcpherson Square and Farragut) seem to do quite well. On nice days, crowds of people will have lunch on the grass. They even do summer lunch time concerts. They somehow manage to kee the grass growing just fine. i can’t believe there is not a way to create green space for the community and keep the grass looking good.
I spent the fall and first week of winter in London, where average winter temperatures are much higher than Silver Spring’s. In fact, the outdoor ice skating rinks in London opened in NOVEMBER, when temps were still in the 50s. Just like in NYC, outdoor ice skating rinks are NOT cooled by the weather, but by PIPES under the water which freezes it into ice. Therefore any argument against a winter ice skating rink in our climate is unfounded. How many people want to “chill” on some frozen grass in the middle of winter regardless of whether temps are in the 40s (average) or in the 20s? I didn’t see too many people enjoying themselves on the turf when I was there 2 weeks ago! Seems people are so obsessed with this turf idea that they can’t see any other use for the space now, and frankly it’s pissing me off, especially after how hard we had to fight to get the county to add more funding to the civic center project to get this temp skating rink idea off the ground again. If each side keeps on bickering, we’re not going to get ANYTHING we like, and the county will and has the right to leave the area in question as a paved-surface plaza. This is the time to COMPROMISE! TURF IN SUMMER, ICE IN WINTER!
Excellent point, Pennster. The PIPES you mention would be same thing as the CHILLER I mentioned. Ice can be created anywhere if you want to spend the money to do it. Check out some of the recreational extravagances in Dubai and elsewhere. Why should we foot the bill for operating pipes/chillers to keep ice frozen in this region? It will be a large expense. Outdoor rinks have failed here. This isn’t a big ice skating region generally. Small green parks, however, ARE a great success. We like nice green grass, on which toddlers can run, teenagers can chat, adults can sunbathe and picnic, and so forth.
Why not turn the turf/rink area into a day labor site.
I HIGHLY doubt that ANYONE will be picnicking, sunbathing, and generally using a piece of grass in the middle of winter. I ABSOLUTELY propose using the area as a park in spring, summer, and fall, but do you not at all see that I am proposing a compromise, not opposing a park? It’s almost comical that nobody seems to have addressed a compromise. To say an ice skating rink would be a failure is to be closed-minded and is frankly taking the easy way out of this discussion. It would take some marketing, yes, but we’ve already got the masses of people coming to the area every weekend to make anything a success on that lot. My guess is that during winter the ice skating rink, especially since it wouldn’t even be that big, would be very highly used, and would probably require a reservation system similar to that being used in other outdoor rinks. Marketing ice skating in the middle of brand new downtown Silver Spring as a family event would make it even more popular. Perhaps the rink in and of itself would not make a profit, but the increased business created by excess foot traffic due to people coming to the rink would probably make up for any loss of money.
How much do these ice skating rinks usually charge?
I 100% agree with Pennster, it seems to be too many people are close minded and don’t think clearly. A combo of park/rink would be great. No matter how much you want to front no one is going out there at 50- degree weather to chill at a green often wet turf. And for the record though SS is in southern maryland we do get snow, contrary to popular believes. I’ve lived in this area all my life 25+ and I would say that we’ve had our share of blizzards. I’m weary about outsiders giving judgment about the development of any area. JMO
There is no need to further exacerbate global warming with this new money losing ice rink. The area is already busy even in cold weather, ice won’t bring in much more revenue, especially to the county who will never recoup the cost. Two beautiful INDOOR ice skating facilities are only a short drive away from Silver Spring at Wheaton and Cabin John Regional Parks. Both of those rinks are losing money, why add more competition only a few miles away? I have wrote a letter to Chairman Berlage a while back about this, I think they are taking me seriously now.
How about putting in radiant heating system (solar powered) in the turf to keep it warm year round? That would be cheaper than a $4 million ice rink disaster.
Regarding the rink/pavilion: the county is not equipped to manage an outdoor ice rink and all it entails, and thus needs a private vendor to manage it. Private vendors will only contract to manage a rink if it is large enough to draw enough users to be profitable and is roofed. These requirements guided the current design of the ice rink/pavilion, and even as designed there is a high liklihood that the rink will fail to be profitable and will need to be subsidized by tax dollars.
Regarding our choices: Unfortunately the site is not large enough to accomodate both a “centralized” green and a rink/pavilion of adequate size. As currently planned, the rink/pavilion intrudes greatly into the available site thus compromising the flexibility of use of the remaining area. This leaves us with a plaza that will not support the multi-scaled day-to-day spontaneous community interaction that is the true success of the existing “turf”. I don’t believe that there is any reasonably priced way to have the correct surface for ice in the winter and re-plant grass or re-install astroturf in the same area in the warmer weather year after year.
Practically speaking the choice does boil down to either a successful community-building plaza/green or an ice rink that leaves only marginalized outdoor public space around it. There are many other places in Silver Spring on which we could build a rink, but no other place to build a central town plaza or green. Lets find another place to build the rink and concentrate our efforts on creating the best community-building plaza/green that we can.
Couple of thoughts on the ice rink and turf.
The National Gallery’s ice rink functions well as an ice rink in the winter and as gathering space at all other times (when the rink is not operational). I believe it’s used by all sorts of folks who happen to be in the area for many reasons. People from my office have been known to skate at lunch, my family has taken the metro down on the weekend to try it out, tourists go and rent skates after touring the museums, etc… This type of rink is a public amenity much like a well designed urban park. It’s also different than the other rinks like Cabin John and Wheaton. Those rinks are programmed recreation sites. People go to those for the specific purpose of taking an ice skating lesson or attending a public session. A rink like the NGA rink or the one proposed in Silver Spring is one of a number of amenities that are typically present in high quality urban places. My thought process would be something like, “hey, let’s head to downtown Silver Spring, we can stop at the library, get some food, see a movie, or ice skate or just hang out… or do all that stuff. Oh, and we can walk there and walk to all the different things that are possible.”
On the turf, I do nothing but smile when I see all the people out on the turf. The thing about it though is that it’s not green space, it’s — by accident — reasonably well functioning urban space. Making it “green” — beyond say figuring out a way deal with runnoff and bring in some urban landscaping — would likely be a step backwards. I think urban public space is different than “green space.” In Silver Spring, there are a number of ways to access green space — walk down to Sligo Creek or (a longer walk) over to Rock Creek Park or Jecquie or the park by the library or any of a number of other pocket parks in the area.
It seems everyone supports green space in the spring, summer and fall, while only some (perhaps even a minority of citizens) support an ice rink, even if its restricted to the winter. Some questions I’d love to have answered:
1) Does having an ice-rink preclude the use of natural grass for the other three seasons?
2) How much more would it cost to build/operate an ice rink when compared to a green space all year long?
I’d love to hear potential thoughts from others more knowledgable about the issue.
There was an ice skating rink in Kentlands town center. Most of the year it was an empty eyesore, and even during the winter it wasn’t very poplular. It was torn down last year and replaced with a plaza.
The skating rink on the Mall is popular, but that’s because there are no alternative for miles around. Downtown Silver Spring has a skating rink two miles away.
There are lots of great things about Kentlands town center, but it’s not Downtown Silver Spring, much less the National Mall. Downtown Silver Spring has a geography and a critical mass of people that is much closer (larger than, even) to an urban center and the vision for its built out scale is much different than a town center in a TND like Kentlands.
The distance between the NGA rink and the rink at the east end of Freedom Plaza along Pennsylvania Ave is about the same distance between the Silver Spring turf and the NOAA building by the SS metro, but that’s beside the point. The rinks in DC don’t compete with each other or any other recreational site, they compete with things like walking on the Mall, the exhibits in the Smithsonian, and are a winter alternative to the carousel, etc… The rink would not be about recreation (Wheaton Ice Arena is not a comparison — even if it were 2 miles away), it would be part of the urban experience.
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