x
Breaking News
More () »

Time to lace up those skates. There's a new ice rink in Davenport

The City of Davenport converted a flood retention pond into an ice skating rink in a neighborhood near the Roosevelt Community Center.

DAVENPORT, Iowa — Davenport residents will now have a new community ice rink to play on. The rink is located on Garden Avenue near the Roosevelt Community Center. 

The new ice rink is a filled in flood retention pond, 1st Ward Alderman Rick Dunn said. 

"We put these retention ponds in probably about 10 years ago, because this area would flood," Dunn said. "We always wanted to take them and fill them with water and make an ice skating rink for kids and focus on this end of town."

He added that this side of Davenport doesn't have an ice rink nearby for kids to play on.

"There's not very many places to ice skate in the city of Davenport, especially outside, you know, Vander Veer (Park), way up on the other end of town," he said. "Unless you want to play in the creek, and you know, that's kind of dangerous. I remember doing that as a kid and probably not one of the safest things to do."

The Parks Department cleared the retention pond of trees and bushes before the Davenport Fire Department came to fill it with water. 

"They hooked the hydrant on the corner and run hoses over … It was quite impressive actually. It was a lot of water, and it was very cold," Dunn said. "Most people, 20 below, they're inside, nice, warm place and (the fire department's) out here in the middle of the late afternoon when it's cold out and doing this project for us. I can't say thank you enough to them because they did a fantastic job."

It took around four to five hours to fill the pond with six inches of water, Dunn said. The fire department came to fill it twice, but it had to wait for the weather to be really cold the first time around so the bottom of the pond would freeze. 

The ice is ready to be skated on now, but Dunn said the fire department will be coming to add another layer earlier this week.

He added that he's already seen kids playing and having fun on it. 

"Had a whole bunch of kids out here this morning playing on it. Didn't have ice skates, but I guess you don't need ice skates to have fun on the ice," he said. "It's always nice to see the kids come out here and play and have a good time."

Later this week, Dunn is also bringing hockey nets to the ice rink. 

Before You Leave, Check This Out