Floods take toll on Ice Arena activities, revenue

This sign graced the entrance to the Washington Park Ice Arena on Aug. 1, 2016 after floodwaters entered the building. The resulting mess was cleaned up so the arena could be reopened, but a second round of flooding on Sunday, Sept. 11 closed the facility again.
This sign graced the entrance to the Washington Park Ice Arena on Aug. 1, 2016 after floodwaters entered the building. The resulting mess was cleaned up so the arena could be reopened, but a second round of flooding on Sunday, Sept. 11 closed the facility again.

Concerns about the twice-flooded Washington Park Ice Arena dominated discussion Tuesday by the Jefferson City Parks and Recreation Commission, but no action was taken.

Todd Spalding, the Parks, Recreation and Forestry director, reported the city's parks sales tax "continues to trend upward, which is a real benefit."

However, the ice arena revenue "starts to become a concern, especially as we get into lesson season and all the different programming things that we have," Spalding added. "That's something we'll have to monitor very closely."

The staff didn't predict a new opening date for the twice-flooded arena after last weekend's second flash flood in 5 weeks ruined the ice and forced a second round of clean-up activities.

"We'll do what we can to get the ice back as quickly as we can," Resources Division Director J.J. Gates said.

The arena had been reopened for about a week when the flooding occurred early Saturday morning.

Phil Stiles, the department's Facilities and Special Services director, said the flooding forced cancellation of the "Ice Theatre" production for the second time, as well.

"Obviously, we lost the first set of our lessons that were scheduled, and we're probably going to lose partial - if not all - of the second set of lessons that were scheduled," Stiles reported. "The hockey (team) has not been able to practice; they were on the ice one time last week."

Likewise, the University of Missouri's hockey team hasn't been able to practice, and it has an away game this weekend, he said.

Several birthday parties also have had to be cancelled, as well as the public sessions.

Board member Cindy Layton wondered if anyone has done "research on what's going on upstream on anything that's causing this to happen," such as the construction of businesses like Kohl's and Sam's Club, as well as some new houses in the Wears Creek watershed area.

However, Bryan Wolford, the assistant city counselor, noted existing city code requires subdivisions and businesses "to meet post-construction, stormwater quality standards - whereas the post-construction stormwater cannot affect the area more than the pre-construction."

He said a big part of the problem was the storms themselves.

"When you have two, 80-year storms within a month of each other," the type of flooding the ice arena experienced shouldn't be too surprising.

Spalding said he hopes a company hired to help develop the department's master plan could help answer some of those questions.

"The group I would recommend us hiring has, as part of their civil engineering group, just deals with stormwater," he said.

The commission held a closed session Tuesday to discuss contracts but didn't say whether it involved the master plan consultants or some other issue.

Jefferson City's ice arena is the only rink in Mid-Missouri. "I think we have a responsibility to make sure that (this flooding) doesn't happen - and, if it does, to know why," Spalding told the commission. "We want to know why - and we're going to have a course of action very soon."

He also worried, although the city has flood insurance on the ice arena, "but, at some point, maybe they're not going to offer it - and we have costs that they're not going to cover with insurance."

Commissioners also approved the third-year agreement of a five-year contract with Environmental Engineering, the company that monitors and maintains the ice arena's refrigeration, HVAC and dehumidification equipment.