The Fort Dupont Ice Arena is located east of the Anacostia River, and is the only full-sized public ice rink in D.C.

/ Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena

Update, February 5: Users of the Fort Dupont Ice Arena have gotten a two-week reprieve in their fight over funding for a planned modernization and expansion of the 43-year-old facility.

City officials have agreed to meet on Wednesday with the Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena, the non-profit that manages the rink, to find a compromise to the current impasse. The group is seeking a commitment that if the money for the arena’s modernization — some $21 million — is instead used for emergency HVAC repairs at D.C. schools, as Mayor Muriel Bowser wants, it will get a commitment that the funding will be restored in a future budget.

“That’s the goal: to have a plan that would allow us to move forward on the modernization of the ice arena without a disapproval of the money for any of the schools,” said Ward 7 D.C. Councilmember Vincent Gray on Tuesday morning. Gray had prepared a resolution to block Bowser’s request, but he agreed to hold it for two weeks to allow both sides to find a compromise.

Original: Supporters of D.C.’s only full-sized public ice rink are mounting a campaign against Mayor Muriel Bowser’s plan to take funds meant for a full renovation of the facility and use them instead for emergency fixes on 21 D.C. schools, including repairs or replacements of the HVAC units at 10 schools.

Bowser asked the D.C. Council in late January to repurpose $54.9 million in the city’s capital budget to cover the repairs, the majority of which—$37 million—is slated to pay for HVAC work at schools across the city, including full system replacements at Oyster-Adams Elementary School in Ward 1, Dorothy Height Elementary School in Ward 4, J.O. Wilson Elementary School in Ward 6, and Malcolm X Elementary School in Ward 8.

A significant chunk of what Bowser is asking for would come from money set aside for the modernization of the 43-year-old Fort Dupont Ice Arena in Ward 7, including the construction of a second ice rink. The entire project is expected to cost $30 million, with the city kicking in $25 million and the non-profit that operates the rink raising the remaining $5 million. Bowser wants $21 million for the school repairs.

“What we have is a case where we have some immediate repairs that are needed to our schools, and on a day like today, it should be really clear that we have some HVAC systems that have lived beyond their years and we band-aided them, patched them as much as we can and they have to be replaced,” said Bowser on Friday.

But her request has generated a stiff pushback from users and supporters of the ice rink, which was originally built by the National Park Service in 1976 for the U.S. bicentennial and was turned over to the Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena in 1996. The group has managed it ever since.

It offers space for ice hockey and figure skating and runs the Kids On Ice program, which gives free skating instruction and equipment to children aged 5 to 18. According to the Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena, approximately 60 percent of the arena’s users live east of the Anacostia River—and the arena faces more demand than it has space.

Supporters of the facility launched a social media campaign called “Save Our Fort” and started a petition asking for the arena’s renovation funding to be left alone. As of Friday, almost 1,300 people had signed it.

Ted Leonsis, who owns the Washington Capitals, tweeted his support for the effort.

The Capitals have hosted learn-to-skate sessions at Fort Dupont, and the team has donated more than $200,000 to the Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Program since 2003, according to Monumental Sports.

Advocates say they were blindsided by Bowser’s announcement, and they fear that if the money for the renovation is used for other purposes, they won’t ever get it back.

“Fort Dupont Ice Arena, beyond the community programs that we do, is the only indoor [ice] facility in the District of Columbia. So we serve all of D.C.,” said John Cotten, a member of Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena’s board and the director of the National Capital Hockey Tournament.

“What you’re taking away from that Ward 7 community is an economic driver. If I live in Friendship Heights and I’m bringing my kid over here to Fort Dupont to skate at the rink, you take away the rink, what reason do I have to come from Friendship Heights to Ward 7?” he added.

Bowser said Friday that she decided to ask for the ice arena’s modernization money because what’s currently budgeted doesn’t meet the expected costs of the project—something Cotten said was not true—and that until it does, the project wouldn’t start anyhow. She also pledged to revisit the project in next year’s capital budget.

“We all sometimes have to make tough choices, and the things we need that are ready to go have to come in place of some of the other things that we can do later,” she said.

Bowser may have a fight on her hands in the Council, however, where Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray is pushing a resolution to be voted on next Tuesday to shoot down Bowser’s request for the money from the arena’s budget. When he was mayor, Gray put $15 million in the city’s capital budget for the arena, money that Bowser then removed before later reinstating.

“Certainly I support fixing schools,” Gray said. “But you can’t tell me you can’t fix the HVAC systems in our schools without sacrificing our ice arena. Once that money is gone, it’s gone.”

“It seems really hypocritical to have her celebrate a Stanley Cup, and now we’re not going to modernize the ice arena,” he added.

Christine Miller, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in Ward 1, says she agrees with Bowser that immediate fixes are needed at certain public schools. At one school in her ward, temperatures in one classroom this week fell into the 40s, forcing the teacher to move students to the library.

But she also says that she hopes the money for the HVAC systems doesn’t come at the expense of the Fort Dupont Ice Arena.

“I don’t think you should take money from that ice rink. It is very important to that community,” she said. “We just have to figure out a way to do both. But we need to make repairs.”

This story was originally published on WAMU.

Filed Under: fort dupont ice arena, mayor bowser, schools, wamu,