READING, Pa. – Could the third time be the charm for a proposed outdoor ice skating rink in Reading?<\/p>\n
This week, the city revealed a rink could join a proposed splash pad at the site of the former Hillside Pool on North 14th Street.<\/p>\n
It’s been a rough go for the proposed ice rink Reading.<\/p>\n
“I think there are a lot of hurdles to the ice rink becoming a reality in Reading,” said Donna Reed, Reading City Council president.<\/p>\n
From failed plans at a baseball field behind the Third and Spruce Recreation Center and City Park, to the current proposed location.<\/p>\n
“Right now, the proposed area is Hillside Park. You’re gonna be seeing some changes. The splash pads, things like that. That’s been the proposal because of the electrical access up there,” Reed said.<\/p>\n
The ice rink is one of the talking points in ongoing budget talks.<\/p>\n
“We’re around a little under $600,000. That’s what the forecast budgeted for it,” explained Reed.<\/p>\n
The ongoing saga of the proposed rink continues, and Reed says the city should be considering what they already have, like the rink at Santander Arena.<\/p>\n
“When you rethink the budget, you think a nine percent tax increase – do we really need that? Look at this beautiful facility we have here. For years there was a rental agreement that families could come skate during the winter when the Royals weren’t using it and other performers weren’t using it,” Reed said.<\/p>\n
So, the ice rink talks continue as the budget deadline looms.<\/p>\n
“I see no reason we would spend that kind of money. Half a million dollars or more for an ice skating rink that we would have to maintain, that public works would have another thing they’d have to deal with,” added Reed.<\/p>\n
City officials said in the past they hoped the rink would be something that could be used as a year-round facility, and a place kids could enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – Could the third time be the charm for a proposed outdoor ice skating rink in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2716,6006,29331,28,736,128,1095,130,129,12565],"class_list":["post-51834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-donna-reed","tag-ice-rink","tag-ice-rinks","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-council","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-santander-arena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51834","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=51834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}