The ice arena at the Kettering Recreation Center will remain open after the city spent more than a year studying the future of the arena and surveying residents.
Mary Beth Thaman, director of the parks, recreation and cultural arts department at the city of Kettering, said the city came to the decision following the survey, study and other community input sessions held throughout the last year.
“The study clearly came out from the community and our region that we needed to keep the ice arena. Not necessarily for just hockey, but for skating and general use,” Thaman said.
Thaman said the city is still working to determine how capital money will be allocated to help make needed repairs to the arena.
Last January, city officials said the 25,000 square-foot facility needs $6 million to $7 million in upgrades to bring it up to code and compliant with newer EPA standards.
“If you’re going to invest that kind of capital dollars, you certainly want it to be a sustainable model,” Thaman said last year.
The director said during the evaluation of the future of the arena, city officials visited some ice arenas in the Chicago area to get some ideas for the arena moving forward.
Thaman said part of the city’s plans include bringing back an ice-show to the arena for the 2017-2018 season, a season she said the city plans to market heavily with the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympic Games.
“Our programming mix is spot on,” Thaman said. “Hockey nationally is up.”
The loss of Hara Arena also has helped the Kettering arena so far this season.
“When Hara closed this past fall and winter have been better for us because we have one less sheet of ice to program in the region,” Thaman said. “It did help our numbers.”
