Hampden considers building new ice rink, playground area

HAMPDEN – Town councilors approved this week spending $2,700 for an engineering study to look at building an ice rink, summer volleyball area and playground near the town’s pool.

The new skating rink is needed as the town is dismantling the existing community skating rink built on the Canoe Club Road near the VFW hall. Hampden Recreation Director Kurt Mathies said the town was looking for a better location for the rink.

As it is now, water runoff is winding up in the rink, freezing, thawing and freezing again, creating a very rough surface to skate on.

“It’s like skating on an Italian ice,” Mathies said Thursday.

At other times, the water runoff from the nearby basketball and tennis courts that sit on higher ground was making the land below swampy, Mathies said.

The boards surrounding the rink have not been maintained and the rink is being torn up, he said.

Mathies said that during the summer, the rink could serve as a sand volleyball court and that a small playground also could be situated on the roughly 250 yards by 150 yards available next to the Lura Hoit Pool.

If everything goes as planned, the rink, and possibly the whole project, could be done next year. The cost assessment and configuration of the rink and playground are being developed by Kiser & Kiser Co., a Hampden engineering and development consulting firm.

In other action at the meeting on Tuesday, councilors awarded a $9,100 contract to Hampden Electrical to replace eight lights, a panel and control system and wiring at the two tennis courts, a job Mathies said would be completed within 90 days.

Funds for both the ice rink study and the replacement of the tennis court lights is coming from the town’s recreation area reserve account.