Reading officials say they have found a new location for a planned outdoor ice-skating rink.<\/p>\n
The city identified City Park as the best alternative site<\/a>, City Managing Director Jack Gombach told City Council at its regular meeting Monday.<\/p>\n Construction of the rink was previously halted due to community concerns over the original site outside the Third and Spruce streets recreation center.<\/p>\n Gombach said the administration is finalizing plans to place the rink in City Park, near the intersection of 11th and Walnut streets.<\/p>\n A community meeting is scheduled for Aug. 20 to gather public input.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel that all of our needs are addressed with this site, as well as increased walkability and access, which was fundamental for the mayor\u2019s decision making,\u201d Gombach said.<\/p>\n The move follows pushback from teams and leagues that use the recreation center\u2019s Roberto Clemente Field. Representatives of those groups told council in July that construction equipment had left the field unusable and that they had not been informed in advance.<\/p>\n Mayor Eddie Moran paused the project<\/a> at that location, pledging to work with the community to find an alternative. Officials had initially selected Clemente Field for its size, accessibility and proximity to the electrical infrastructure needed to operate rink refrigeration systems.<\/p>\n Officials previously said City Park did not have the electrical capacity needed for the ice rink\u2019s operation.<\/p>\n Council President Donna Reed asked Monday whether the City Park site would still allow the rink to serve multiple purposes year-round, as proposed for Clemente Field.<\/p>\n Gombach said the new location could be even better suited for off-season uses.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything from being sort of a landing pad for farmers markets \u2013 an area for them to set up \u2013 to being able to host movie nights in that area, and then obviously, of course, ice skating during the seasonal months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The city is working with a third-party partner to operate the rink in the winter and is preparing new cost estimates based on the City Park site, Gombach said.<\/p>\n The design would still include a permanent concrete pad to support ice skating from December through February, depending on the weather, and to host roller skating, markets, movies and other events during warmer months.<\/p>\n Community meeting<\/p>\n Reading officials have scheduled a meeting to discuss plans for a public ice-skating rink at City Park.<\/p>\n The meeting will be held Aug. 20 at 5 p.m. in City Park on the Walnut Street side near Locust Street. The rain date is Aug. 26.<\/p>\n Residents can learn about the project, ask questions and provide feedback.<\/p>\n The meeting also will be carried live on the City of Reading, PA \u2013 Government page<\/a> and BCTV.org<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading officials say they have found a new location for a planned outdoor ice-skating rink. The city identified…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,857,182,139,28,736,128,130,129,706],"class_list":{"0":"post-46286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-essential-reading","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-reading","14":"tag-reading-city","15":"tag-reading-city-headlines","16":"tag-reading-city-news","17":"tag-top-stories-reg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46286","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=46286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}