Phoenix’s Central Ave. rink open to ice skaters
Since Saturday, a winter wonderland of sorts has greeted visitors to CityScape in downtown Phoenix.
Phoenix has closed off a part of Central Avenue to create enough room for CitySkate, which is the largest outdoor rink the city has ever had, organizers said.
“It takes a big squad of workers, about 40 different people to assemble the rink,” said Jeff Moloznik, CityScape general manager. “We move in 75 tons of sand, which helps level off the street and allows the ice to have a perfectly balanced sheet.”
After everything is leveled, the workers begin laying refrigeration tubes and fill the area with water.
The rink, 120 feet long and 40 feet wide, essentially becomes a large bathtub.
“We use the same technology the NHL uses to freeze its ice indoors,” Moloznik said.
Creating National Hockey League-style ice in a city where temperatures fluctuate drastically from day to night requires a large chiller that cools the water constantly.
“We come in after the sandboxers and use a 200-ton chiller that is utilized to kill any secondary fluid,” said Brad Berman, president of American Skating Entertainment Centers. “The chiller cools the secondary liquid, which travels to the rink floor, pulls the heat out of the water, which then freezes and turns to ice.”
Workers must remove any air pockets in the ice to prevent it from cracking.
This step can take five to six hours.
From start to finish, the process can take up to nine days, with six workers putting in 12-hour shifts each day.
To keep the ice protected from the elements, workers add an aluminum sun reflector during non-operating hours, which saves the quality of the ice. And the surrounding buildings at CityScape provide shade, which keeps temperatures down and offers a barrier for the wind.
CitySkate features a new North Pole design.
Organizers said they expect more than100,000 people to participate during the approximately six weeks the rink is open.
For more details and rates, call 602-772-3900 or visit cityscapephoenix.com.