Tonawanda, N.Y. (WBEN) - Construction crews in the Town of Tonawanda continue to chug along with work along Brompton Road to build not just the new Paddock Chevrolet Ice Arena, but also a new inclusive spray park, volleyball courts, pickleball courts, a rugby/soccer pitch and more across the street.
Councilman Carl Szarek, who also serves as the Chair of the Town Youth Parks and Recreation Committee, says the $20 million project is on course heading into the coming weeks and months ahead.
"We've been very lucky this last two weeks with the great weather we've been having. We were behind maybe a week or so in progress, but we really made up a lot of time this last week, and we're really excited about it. That's why we wanted to come out today," said Szarek during a briefing on site in Tonawanda on Thursday. "We just put down some some sod for our rugby pitch, and progress across the street at the new ice arena has been great. Looking forward to probably a March opening of next year, and we'll be closing the old Brighton Arena and opening the new one."
Szarek says the new ice arena will hopefully be ready for its ribbon cutting ceremony before St. Patrick's Day, while the spray park and other amenities across the street will be ready by the start of next summer.
What makes the massive 13-acre project so great for the community, according to Szarek, is it touches so many different families and residents, and will even be a destination for others throughout Western New York.
"We're offering so many different things. We're offering a rugby pitch, which is kind of a new sport here in Tonawanda. We have pickleball courts, which a lot of the seniors are excited about. Not enough pickleball courts, that is a big complaint that I hear. And obviously the huge arena that we're building, a full-size ice rink that we didn't have before. So we'll have teams coming in, tournaments coming in, and the excitement extends throughout Western New York, not just here in Tonawanda," Szarek said.
When work surrounding the project officially started more than a decade ago to build a new ice arena for the town, Szarek says the process dragged on a bit and never had much life to it. That all changed when the town and the project's architect talked about the facility across the street.
"We're touching so many different folks in the population with seniors, with the rugby pitch, which is an exciting game, we're going to have sand volleyball. It was so much more inclusive, and the crowning jewel is obviously the spray park, the splash park. It's going to be a destination for all of Western New York, and [it will be] inclusive, inclusive for kids that maybe are handicapped or can't swim," Szarek explained. "A great day like today, the difference between having a swimming pool, it would have been closed three, four weeks ago. We can open the splash park today, because it's a gorgeous day out. So the immediacy of using this splash park is really what's exciting to the community."
Over the course of the next coming weeks and months, Szarek says work will continue on site, with progress at the ice arena expected to really pick up once the exterior walls are up and in place.
"Inside, we're going to have different rooms, different venues in there, we're gonna have a restaurant in there. There'll be a lot of activities, even besides hockey and ice skating goes. A lot to do in there," he said. "There'll be a lot of electronics, it's going to be a state-of-the-art ice arena from the way the ice has been developed through having Zambonis that are electric. There's a lot to do inside, and we're looking forward to getting it buttoned up outside so we'll get working inside."
