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Ice rink coming to McEuen Park

by CRAIG NORTHRUP
Staff Writer | April 5, 2021 1:09 AM

Those looking for some icy family festivities will have another option to choose from next winter.

The city of Coeur d’Alene has agreed to a lease that will bring ice skating to McEuen Park.

“We in the Parks Department had always talked about doing a winter ‘something,’” Parks and Recreation director Bill Greenwood said. “When enough snow is here, we back-dragged the snow and did a cross-country ski [track] through McEuen. But the snow doesn’t usually stick around very often.”

The city came to terms with an ice rink ice company for a five-year lease in front of the pavilion in McEuen that will run through 2025. While the contract will expire in January of 2026, language in the contract makes the lease renewable if both parties see fit.

The company is helmed by Jerome Murray of Coeur d’Alene, who has set up similar arenas in California and Oregon.

“We’ve been doing this for about six years,” Murray told The Press. “We moved up here about four years ago. I’m from Bozeman, and my wife is from Moses Lake, Wash. We always wanted to get back to this part of the world, but when we moved back, we thought, ‘This town needs an ice rink.’”

Coeur d’Alene On Ice, the official name of the company Murray will use to set up the rink, will install and operate the outdoor setting, complete with LED lights built into the ice and a Zamboni to groom the rink. The temporary facility will also come with warming stations, skate rentals, a pre-packaged concession area and a ticket booth. Murray said he and his team were still determining prices.

Murray and the city were actually ready to come to terms in early 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic put their plans, well, on ice.

“I know people have been asking for it for a long time,” Mayor Steve Widmyer said.

The rink will operate every winter from early November to early January before being removed for the warmer months. The city will reseed the grass for those months once Coeur d’Alene On Ice wraps up for each year.

"This is a great public-private partnership that does something good for the city,” council member Kiki Miller said.

Murray said Coeur d’Alene On Ice didn’t have an exact opening day scheduled yet, but that the company was targeting Nov. 1.

photo

Bill Greenwood, director of Coeur d'Alene Parks and Recreation, said this diagram shows where Coeur d'Alene On Ice will install a temporary ice rink over the next five winters. (Courtesy city of Coeur d'Alene)