New 20 million dollar 2 sheet Ice Facility to be built in the Eastside

[superdeluxe]

$20 million ice arena coming to Snoqualmie

The City of Snoqualmie is getting a new, privately financed ice arena, with two NHL-sized sheets, by 2020.
The Sno-King Amateur Hockey Association believes it will dramatically impact the development of youth and adult ice sports, just as Seattle's NHL team comes on board with new rinks of their own.
"We're excited to get more ice for our members," says Dave Blanchard, the Executive Director of Sno-King. "We were looking all over the Eastside for different sites, it's really difficult given the market, and costs for things and we happened upon something on Snoqualmie Ridge."
That spot, near 35300 SE Douglas Street in Snoqualmie, will be developed by Jeff Razwick and leased back to Sno-King. Groundbreaking is set for this summer, with an opening date scheduled for July of 2020. Blanchard says the overall cost will be $20 million.
It will allow the non-profit organization to expand their learn-to-skate and youth programs, as well as public access for gatherings. As of now, in the hockey and figure skating community, there is a shortage of "ice time," which leaves many people using rinks very early or very late in the day.
Blanchard says the new facility will add more than 6,500 hours of ice time to the entire Eastside market. He says that allows for 1,600 youth and 1,000 more adults to the learn-to-play, youth, and adult programs.

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[snovalleyhockeyfan]

Thanks for posting this, SD. Since I live near this location, I'll provide a bit of a cliffs notes version of what they've got up there.

The building is going to be built in the Ridge's industrial zone which is back behind a Safeway and near the police station. There's already quite a few industrial buildings in this area now and the street they are on is not heavily traveled - it's off the main arterial up there.

One of the primary issues that Sno-King and the NHL team may have to deal with in terms of scheduling practices and games in there is that the exit off I-90 to Highway 18 and the Ridge coming from Seattle is usually a parking lot and has become a very dangerous exit to use as a result because the traffic backs up onto the freeway off that ramp. The traffic backup is going toward Maple Valley, by the way, not to the Ridge but just getting to that exit will be a challenge and problematic. The state is working on a fix to this but it's probably at minimum five years out.

The Ridge itself is a neighborhood that I can see possibly one or two players deciding to make their full-time residence up there once the NHL team starts up shop. They do have the golf course up there and there's two elementary schools that are located up there in that neighborhood as well so if it's an older vet-type player with a family whose kids are young, that will be a plus. The local school district is also finishing up construction on a replacement high school at the current high school campus which is set to open this August and the high school itself has just been named to that US News list for top schools in Washington. The district as a whole has developed a strong reputation as being an excellent school district too academically.

In all, Sno-King I think did themselves very well here and while the costs will be pretty steep, there's not a lot of other good places on the I-90 corridor where they could have set up shop. Preston, maybe, but you'd be dealing with probably a lot of the same issues that you'd be dealing with on the Ridge and it's further from services/residential neighborhoods so a bit longer commute.

 

[gstommylee]

There are state long term plans to redo that i-90/18 interchange. Leading idea so far is DDI but the state is going though community engagement, traffic and environmental analyses to design and refine what ends up happening for that interchange.

 

[snovalleyhockeyfan]

There are state long term plans to redo that i-90/18 interchange.

Correct, but like I said it's probably a good five years out, Tommy. And they should have had that done five years ago it's been that bad up there for years.

 

[gstommylee]

Correct, but like I said it's probably a good five years out, Tommy. And they should have had that done five years ago it's been that bad up there for years.

construction starts 2021 through 2023. 4 years out. It has to do with state funding and what design they want to use.