Sprinker To Close
Just in case you haven’t heard, the main building at the Sprinker Recreation Center (located at 14824 C Street S.) is now set to close this fall. After many years of neglect, the primary item of concern is the roof, though several other upkeep and maintenance issues have been cited.
Skaters (or potential South Sound Curlers) looking for ice may be directed to the hockey facilities on the Tideflats, or the nearest other rinks in Bremerton, Kent or Renton. Or maybe you’d support a tax measure to save Sprinker? It’s a regional center that hosted more than 300,000 people last year? Maybe?
Link to The News Tribune
Link to Sprinker Center Homepage
Link to Friends of Sprinker
Filed under: General
8 comments
N Nick June 24, 2010
Nooooo this is sad news!
Admittedly, I never went there because of its distant location (relative to me anyway). But seriously, it’s sad enough that our entire state doesn’t have a single NHL team. Now we’re losing our small ice rinks?
The hockey nut inside me is crying right now…
C crenshaw sepulveda June 24, 2010
The Tacoma Dome, in the past, has allowed the public to skate on their ice.
J jenyum June 25, 2010
Crenshaw: read somewhere that that was a thing of the past.
Current parking requirements call for 6 parking spaces per every 1,000 square feet of floor space for skating rinks, so a rink of any size would require upwards of 100 spaces. Not likely to be something a private entity could make money off of at a price people could afford.
Y You're Welcome June 25, 2010
Tacoma done took out the damaged ice rink a long time ago. It’s that whole “Tacoma… put no money into the maintenance and then hopelessly beg taxpayers for more money” thing that failed the t-dome ice arena over 10 years ago.
C cy June 29, 2010
It is an interesting story arc. If a community center falls in the forest…
J Jesse June 29, 2010
Little or no money into maintenance built into the yearly budget? Isn’t that typical of Pierce County, especially Tacoma ventures. Just think of what this town would look like today if maintenance was kept up on city and county owned items and they didn’t knock things down to build new things just because they old things are on main roads. Let’s see… we’d have a full-on streetcar system and cable-car, we could cross the MM bridge by car, the Luzon would still be standing (the county owned it for most of the last 25 years it stood), Old City Hall would have a working clock tower, and many of the buildings from “urban renewal” in the 1950’s would still be standing. The roads would have been on a repaving or maintenance cycle and Pacific Avenue wouldn’t be ugly parking structures – it’d be awesome 1890’s buildings.
No maintenance plus taking infrustructure out because it’s aging does not grow a city or make it into a grand place to live. Beautiful cities around the world know this.
M MASTERblaster July 1, 2010
Why not just change the parking law?
Or why not build a new rink close to downtown? There are a lot of great empty lots we could use. It’s not like the City has any sense o how to balance a checkbook. We may as well get a rink out of them before the proverbial sh*t hits the fan.
O offbroadway July 3, 2010
That’s so sad. Since the historic Lakewood Ice Arena fell into Lake Steilacoom, for decades, Sprinker was the go-to place. And really, a quick straight-shot south down Yakima Avenue, past PLU, and you’re there.