Holland is getting a new community ice rink that local officials believe will be another selling point for meeting planners wanting to schedule events in the west Michigan waterfront community.
Holland Assistant City Manager Matt VanDyken says the rink is in close proximity to the Haworth Hotel, which contains 10,000 square feet of conference space, and also Holland Civic Center Place accommodating up to 1,500. “[Attendees] want something to do after events are over with,” he says. “We see it as another tool in the toolbox for people who want to come here for their meetings.”
The new Holland ice rink has been on the community’s radar for years. Local resident and retired schoolteacher Frank Kraai had donated $100,000 to fundraise for the project several years ago, but it was not nearly enough to fund the Holland ice rink, which was projected to cost about $11 million.
Then Kraai met with his financial advisers and realized he had amassed $1 million in savings. He promptly donated that as well, hoping to fulfill a longtime dream of seeing the establishment of a Holland ice rink.
“That really kick-started the project,” VanDyken says. “We started to do more planning in earnest, figuring out what we wanted to do. And at the same time, we did a more public fundraising campaign for the ice rink. … We fundraised for more than half of what the project cost is going to be.” The balance will come from the city’s capital improvement fund.
Located in the Window on the Waterfront park on the corner of Sixth Street and College Avenue downtown, the Holland ice rink will be open Thanksgiving through April and feature about 14,000 square feet of ice including a small curling sheet. Construction has already started on the project. Completion is slated for fall next year.
“It’s at that location because we felt it needed to be very close to the downtown area,” VanDyken explains. “People can go downtown, they can enjoy the social district, get dinner, and then come down and ice skate.”
