A rally and party in support of a long-running effort to create an outdoor roller-skating rink in Downtown’s Red Arrow Park will be held on Saturday.
“Red Arrow Park is vacant for 75% of the year, whenever the weather can’t support ice skating,” said Terrence Clarke, coordinator of the Roller Skate at Red Arrow Park advocacy group. “We’re simply asking to use a public county park as intended, as stated by the manufacturer of the rink, without wasting taxpayer dollars on unnecessary infrastructure.”
The roller-skating rally will begin at 1 p.m., off skates, at Red Arrow Park, 920 N. Water St., to drum up support for the proposal.
At 2 p.m., the annual “Rollin’ on Water” Skate Party will be held a few blocks south on a paved parcel across from the Milwaukee Public Market, 400 N. Water St. Chicago’s DJ Bam will play live music. Roller skaters must bring their own skates to the event, which is free and open to the public.
In May, Milwaukee County supervisors unanimously approved a resolution authored by Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson and Supervisor Ryan Clancy to require Milwaukee County Parks to present a plan for use of Red Arrow Park as a roller-skating rink.
The plan presented by Milwaukee County Parks in June citied the need for additional funding and time, in part to put down a protective covering over the rink’s concrete base and to install temporary framing around the rink. The advocacy group says it has documentation from the manufacturer that no protective base over the concrete is needed to preserve the rink’s cooling system.
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Nicholson presented a plan to funnel $175,000 toward a pilot program for the rink but County Executive David Crowley vetoed that plan in July, citing budgetary concerns. The group maintains that funding isn’t needed, and that the rink should be used for roller skating as it currently exists, with programming provided by Milwaukee’s roller-skating community.
In his veto message, Crowley stated that he didn’t object to the general principle of the resolution and further stated that he applauded the County Board’s “continued willingness to consider out-of-the-box ideas on how to utilize our world-class parks to maximize our constituents’ experience.”
Crowley said his objection stemmed from the compressed timeline of the proposed project and the need to consider Milwaukee County’s overall and ongoing fiscal health.
Roller Skate at Red Arrow Park has been working since 2014 to allow the park to be used by roller skaters when the rink isn’t set up for ice skating. The refrigerated rink at Red Arrow Park, commonly known as the Slice of Ice and often billed as Milwaukee’s version of New York City’s Rockefeller Center, operates during winter months but sits vacant throughout the remainder of the year.
The group noted that other ice rinks across the country allow roller skating at ice rinks during warmer months, including the Guidant John Rose Minnesota Oval in Roseville, Minnesota, which serves as a speedskating oval and a rink for the winter sport of bandy; the Recreation Outdoor Center, also in Minnesota; the Olympic Center in Lake Placid, New York, which also operates as a speedskating oval in the winter months; and the Plaza at Gateway Park in Neenah, among others.
More information about the effort to bring roller skating to Red Arrow Park is available on the Facebook page.
