Keith Krem, owner of Steel Ice Center and Lehigh Valley Phantoms Youth vice president of hockey operations, said he originally bought the property with the intention to expand resources and access for local high school and college teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have youth teams that are practicing as early as 5:30 in the morning, and then we have adult programming running until about 1 a.m.,\u201d at the Steel Ice Center.<\/p>\n
Keith Krem, owner of Steel Ice Center and Lehigh Valley Phantoms Youth vice president of hockey operations<\/p>\n
With the city municipal rink on Illick\u2019s Mill Road operating on a seasonal basis, arranging for practice space can get tricky for local teams, Krem said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have youth teams that are practicing as early as 5:30 in the morning, and then we have adult programming running until about 1 a.m.,\u201d at the Steel Ice Center, Krem said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we are saturated in every way, shape or form.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new facility will feature St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network branding, Krem said, as the health system currently operates a gym at the front of the building that will also see updates.<\/p>\n
![\"Steel](\"https:\/\/static.lehigh-v.lehigh-valley.production.k1.m1.brightspot.cloud\/dims4\/default\/dff843b\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1299x731+0+0\/resize\/880x495!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flehigh-valley-brightspot.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2F94%2Fb3%2F27e9c47d44848160293a45176db9%2Fscreenshot-411.png\")
<\/p>\n
Highland Associates<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
Distributed \/ City of Bethlehem<\/p>\n
Steel Ice Center in South Bethlehem eyes a 34,000-square-foot addition to make room for now its third ice rink on site, as well as another 6,000 square feet for a fitness facility with gym space, stretch and recovery lab and locker area. Shown above is a digital rendering of the proposed project from east of the site.<\/p>\n
‘Thrilled’<\/p>\n
Planner Matthew Malozi said, \u201cBusiness must be good, investing and expanding the facility right where it belongs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steel Ice Center and its owners are \u201cthrilled\u201d to be operating \u201cin the middle of a really good, cultural hotbed,\u201d Krem said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously we\u2019re happy and pleased that it\u2019s taking place here in our city,\u201d Planning Commission chairman Robert Melosky said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBusiness must be good, investing and expanding the facility right where it belongs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethlehem Planning Commission member Matthew Malozi<\/p>\n
Property owners presented their project sketch plan to the city Planning Commission on Thursday, offering a preliminary look at what\u2019s proposed and a chance for feedback from planners and the public.<\/p>\n
The proposed project is allowed by right in the city’s Industrial Redevelopment District and will not require any zoning relief.<\/p>\n
![\"Steel](\"https:\/\/static.lehigh-v.lehigh-valley.production.k1.m1.brightspot.cloud\/dims4\/default\/b67ac24\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1229x691+0+0\/resize\/880x495!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flehigh-valley-brightspot.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2F27%2F4d%2Ff5f68bc441dfa61752d0962f02b7%2Fscreenshot-412.png\")
<\/p>\n
Highland Associates<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
Distributed \/ City of Bethlehem<\/p>\n
Steel Ice Center in South Bethlehem eyes a 34,000-square-foot addition to make room for now its third ice rink on site, as well as another 6,000 square feet for a fitness facility with gym space, stretch and recovery lab and locker area. Rendering shown above is a digital rendering of the proposed project from a street viewpoint.<\/p>\n
Steel Ice Center, dubbed on its website as \u201cthe premier ice skating facility in the Lehigh Valley,\u201d currently offers two professional-sized ice surfaces and hockey, figure skating and public skating programming.<\/p>\n
The facility operates at 320 E. First St., in the shadow of SteelStacks.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also home to other area groups such as the Lehigh University men\u2019s ice hockey team, the Polar Bears of Special Hockey of the Lehigh Valley, and Penguin Figure Skating Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 The home of Lehigh Valley Phantoms Youth Hockey, a program now more than 500 players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,628,155,630,154,629,631,632,633,634,635,636],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-city-planning-commission","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-ice-hockey","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bethlehem-planning-commission","tag-east-first-street-in-bethlehem","tag-lehigh-valley-phantoms-youth-hockey","tag-steel-ice-center-expansion","tag-steelstacks","tag-will-oliver","tag-youth-hockey-in-bethlehem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}