Mike Wolanin | The Republic An exterior view of Hamilton Community Center and Ice Arena in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024.
City officials are set to award the contractor who will build the shell for the new locker room at Hamilton Community Center & Ice Arena.
During the Board of Public Works and Safety meeting on Monday, parks officials opened bids for the project, which will be awarded at the next public works meeting on Dec. 30.
Columbus Parks & Recreation is working on two projects at Hamilton Community Center and Ice Arena (HCCIA) currently, per Pam Harrell, associate director of business services.
One is for new compressors at the arena, which help keep the ice in the rink frozen. The other is for the shell addition, which will include a girl’s locker room. The Columbus Parks Foundation has been raising funds for the latter since 2023.
The shell addition has two components to it — a mechanical room that’s going to house the compressors on one side and the new locker room on the other side.
The bids for the compressor portion will be awarded through the parks board in January, according to Harrell. The locker room shell portion went through the board of works because the city budgeted $200,000 in capital for the project this year, made up of economic development income tax (EDIT) dollars.
“The reason we’re taking that to the board of works is because we need to get that encumbered because it’s in 2024 dollars,” Harrell said.
Driftwood Builders Inc., Dunlap & Company Inc. and Repp & Mundt, Inc. each submitted bids for the shell addition of $507,350, $494,900 and $442,341 respectively.
“We’ll be breaking that bid down to charge a piece of it to the mechanical room project and a piece of it to the locker room project,” Harrell said. “… We are doing the shell and then later, once we raise money through our Park Foundation, we will do another project to finish it.”
The Park Foundation has raised about $135,000 to date, according to Harrell. That combined with the $200,000 the city is providing means they’re about $65,000 short of their $400,000 goal.
The Park Foundation’s Plunge into Parks on Jan. 11, along with some help from additional grants parks is applying for may very well get the fundraising goal across the finish line. Parks officials hope to hit the goal early next year.
Organizers have said the ice arena needs to expand in order to better serve the community and visitors. Hamilton does not have a dedicated space for girls and women to use and as the Girl’s Hockey League, along with figure skating and other ice programs, continue to grow, the participants need a locker room to get ready.
This additional locker room will give the venue the opportunity to host more hockey tournaments including women’s hockey events and bigger men’s tournaments. And project leaders say bringing in bigger tournaments will increase sports tourism benefiting the city’s economy through hotel stays, restaurant visits and more.
