With the Christmas celebration to begin this week, curiosity mixed with fascination has been aroused in the citizens of Marion County over a most unusual site in this part of the country — an outdoor ice skating rink.
While there are some other rinks indoors and outdoors throughout the state, the challenge is real in maintaining an outdoor rink in balmy South Mississippi, where it’s not unusual for highs to reach into the 70s even in December.
But Experience Columbia LLC is currently constructing two rinks side by side on the east side of the intersection of Main and Second streets.
It’s part of the month-long holiday festivities that include Saturday’s Christmas parade and nightly light shows downtown. Experience Columbia, led by the people behind last year’s Christmas celebration that captivated the region, received the city’s bid to conduct the events, which are funded in part by $275,000 from the 3 percent tourism tax that voters approved earlier this year.
For the past couple of weeks a team of workers from different businesses have been gathering together to discuss ideas and the best way to bring the idea of an ice skating rink to life. Brainstorming has included trips to other parts of the country to discuss with the professionals the best way to do it all in hopes of being ready for Saturday night.
Kristian Agoglia with Experience Columbia said the project is something that is taking a team of experts to pull off and that something of this magnitude is more than any one person could do between the constructing, the cooling and all of the electrical work to both set up and maintain.
Agoglia and Mike McDaniel with MD Electric recently took a trip to New York to discuss the ins and outs of creating a rink and everything it entails to maintain it. They learned it takes a lot of complicated and difficult work to execute.
Once the outer walls and bases were constructed, approximately 380 square yards of sand was delivered to make the base level. The base has to be completely level within an eighth of an inch; otherwise water will build up on one side. Once it is leveled, mats are laid across the base in which the coolant, glycol, which is similar to antifreeze, runs though the lines in the base mats. Once the mats have been cooled, water is added at a rate of one-eighth of an inch at a time. It takes three days to create two inches of ice, which is required to ice skate. Once the ice is frozen, two to three inches of ice is needed to maintain it.
The first of the two rinks is a 42-foot-by-95-foot oval recreational sports rink from Minnesota, and the other is a 40-by-60 rectangle rink from Ft. Collins, Colo. Each rink will be connected to its own chiller with the first being a 200-ton unit and the other 132 tons.
Jacob Harrison with Experience Columbia said the biggest obstacles are warm weather, wind and rain.
Experience Columbia has purchased 250 pairs of ice skates, which can be rented. Tickets for the ice skating and all other activities may be purchased at the Main Street Building, which is the former police station on the opposite side of the intersection at Main and Second streets. Skates will be available inside of Santa’s Workshop next to the rinks.
