Minneapolis Park Board recommends closure of four outdoor rinks partly because of climate change

After only one week when people could skate on outdoor ice rinks during a record warm winter last year, Minneapolis wants to scale back its number of rinks.

In late October, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board recommended closing five outdoor rinks in its proposed 2025 budget due to climate change, increased supplies and materials needed due to inflation as well as fluctuating lake ice and warming house costs. The number of suggested rink closures has since been reduced to four, according to Park Board staff.

The rinks recommended for closure this winter are in Webber, Windom and Powderhorn parks. The Lyndale Farmstead Park rink will close in 2025-26.

“Powderhorn and Webber are both built on water bodies and that makes it more challenging to open and maintain than rinks built on land due to changing ice thickness and quality,” said board spokeswoman Robin Smothers.

The decision to close the Windom and Lyndale Farmstead rinks are “based on proximity to other rinks and the challenges of constructing the various sites,” Smothers said.

The Matthews Park rink was originally recommended to be closed, but Smothers said the rink will stay open since the board would not want two rink closures in one district.

All of this is subject to change until the budget is approved by the board on Dec. 10. If all the proposed rinks close, it would bring the number of Minneapolis outdoor rinks from 22 to 18.

Joe Dziedzic, a former Minnesota Golden Gophers hockey player who went on to play professionally for the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Phoenix Coyotes, grew up near the Windom Park rink in northeast Minneapolis. He said it saddened him to see the city potentially discontinue the rink.

“For me, Windom is where it all began. It’s where I learned to skate and learned to love the game,” Dziedzic said. “I realize the neighborhood has changed, but kids still need things to do to be active. Not having the neighborhood rink available for kids to play is a bad sign of the times.”

The closures could help the board address a $1.5 million budget gap that has grown because of inflationary pressures and other issues such as costs associated with the new Graco Park which opened this fall in northeast Minneapolis. Park staff spent almost $890,000 or more than $110,000 per day in labor and materials to try to keep the city’s 45 outdoor ice rinks frozen and operable for a week at the end of January before the rinks turned to slush.

The savings from ice rink changes could also help activate Graco Park, which will have a new building that will open to the public next year.

The recommended closures come after the Twin Cities experienced the warmest winter on record in 2023-24, breaking the highest average temperature record previously held by “the year without a winter” in 1877-78. Last winter saw an average temperature of 29.9 degrees. There’s been various predictions on what this winter could look like, but the winter after 1877-78 saw the average temperature dip back down to 16 degrees.

Leo Pomerenke is a University of Minnesota student on assignment for the Minnesota Star Tribune.