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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

New ice arena planned

A new ice arena is in the works for Spokane Valley, one that could be open in time for hockey season a year from now.

John Baldwin, a Spokane native who’s spent the last seven years running an athletic club-style skating arena in Redwood City, Calif, plans to open a similar facility on Appleway Boulevard where Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake meet.

“We’ll actually have a club atmosphere with all the amenities, an NHL-sized ice rink, a smaller practice rink, stadium seating in the 750 to 1,000 seat range, and a restaurant,” Baldwin said Tuesday. “We haven’t done the fine tuning on (memberships) yet, but it will be very reasonable, similar to 24-Hour Fitness.”

Refrigerated ice has been hard to come by in the Inland Northwest, since last April when the popular, Spokane Valley-based Planet Ice closed shop, leaving just three sheets of ice available from Spokane to Coeur d’Alene. Planet Ice’s owner defaulted on nearly $4 million in loans. AmericanWest Bank, the lender left holding the bills, then sold the rink on Eden Place west of Barker Road to MoCo Engineering & Fabrication, a small sawmill manufacturing company.

But Baldwin isn’t worried about securing good footing in the region’s precarious rink business. The greater Spokane area has the population to support more ice, he said. Convinced there’s need for more ice here, Baldwin has sold his share in the successful Ice Oasis in Redwood City.

Plus, this new 45,00-square-foot arena, the Spokane Valley Skating and Hockey Club, would be unlike the area’s existing rinks — the Riverfront Park Arena, the Eagles Ice-A-Rena in North Spokane or the KYRO rink off Seltice Way between Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. The existing rinks offer ice on a time rental basis. Baldwin’s rink promises to work more like an athletic club, open to members with skater-minded weightlifting and conditioning on the side. He expects to submit his plans to Spokane Valley for a building permit in January and to break ground in early spring, weather permitting.

The new facility also won’t have to worry about the competition as much as Planet Ice did. The ill-fated rink competed directly against Ice World USA, a Liberty Lake ice rink that opened within a few months of Planet Ice and later closed.

Without a doubt, there’s a need for more ice in the Spokane area, said Terry Morrow, president of the Inland Empire Amateur Hockey Association. The group was really in a bind after Planet Ice closed and didn’t find smooth skating until working with Riverfront Park officials to bring those facilities up to snuff.

Morrow, though, said he didn’t know how his organization would fit into a club rink with its required membership. He’s reserving judgment until he knows more.

“I think the thing that will decide whether this thing is a go or not will be how much the club dues will be,” Morrow said. “As long as we can get onto it that would be great.”