THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 25, 1995 TAG: 9510250459
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Short : 44 lines
What is being billed as the world's only indoor, transportable ice-skating rink will be wintering this year on the resort strip.
The giant loaf-shaped inflatable building - with a roof like a tennis bubble and a frozen floor three-quarters the size of a regular rink - will sit on a city-owned parking lot at 30th and Atlantic.
A Richmond entrepreneur announced Tuesday that he is bringing his new invention to the Oceanfront next month to coordinate with the city's holiday lights show. The rink, to be called Starship Ice, will operate from Nov. 15 through the end of March.
It measures 200 feet long, 90 feet wide and 30 feet tall - small enough for its pieces to be trucked in from Richmond, but big enough, if something goes awry, to create its own weather, said Allan B. Harvie Jr., president of the ADANAC Group, which owns the facility.
In fact, generating indoor rain was Harvie's biggest concern in developing the rink.
``If you take 95-degree air and structure it with a 25-degree floor, you've got an instant rainstorm,'' said Harvie, who has toiled for three years to develop a system he swears will work.
The city, which will not pay any money for the rink, is expected to finalize a contract with Harvie by the end of the week. His company will pay a modest rent for the use of the land, and tickets and concessions will be taxed.
``This fits in perfectly with all our holiday themes,'' councilman Linwood O. Branch III said, ``and might be something we'd want to look at on a permanent basis.''
Harvie, the former owner of the Richmond Renegades ice hockey team, said he is building permanent rinks in Chesapeake, beside the Regal Theaters in the Greenbrier area, and in Newport News off Victory Boulevard near the Super Kmart.
The rink can hold 350 people, Harvie said, and it will cost $6 to skate, with rentals running $2.50 to $3. by CNB