CEDAR PARK, Texas — In February, the lead developer of The Crossover planned to open the two main ice rinks in June. Thanks to COVID-19 slowing construction, the developer and owner of Chaparral Ice hope to open the rinks in August.
Ryan Raya, owner of Chaparral Ice, said because of the coronavirus, construction pace slowed. Rooms that could hold six people started holding only two. If they could hold hundreds, that dropped to dozens. Those restrictions will be in place when rinks open as well.
"Seven-thousand people could be in this facility in a normal circumstance without COVID," Raya said. "At any one point, we're only going to have a few hundred people in here total."
Raya said guests will also have to go through health screenings upon arrival.
This weekend, The Crossover developers are flooding Raya's rinks gradually. The process takes about 200,000 gallons of water. One rink has sand as a base, which makes for softer ice, which is better for ice skating, according to Raya. The other rink has a concrete base, which makes for harder ice that's better for hockey.
Both rinks are climate controlled. Raya said the sand-based rink can be controlled finer than the concrete-based one. Each rink has its own cooling system with miles of piping that looks like, what Raya compared to, the back of a refrigerator.
According to developer Eric Perardi, the rinks could open in early August. The rest of the facility's amenities and businesses will have a phased introduction. Perardi hopes the entire building will open in spring 2021.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: