Let's Make Veterans Plaza a Place that Unifies

[jamie r. karn]

There are many strong reasons to remove the ice rink from the Veterans Plaza and build a smaller pavilion. These include:

· Strong evidence that most community members place a higher value on open space than on the rink, but public outreach has been too limited to provide an accurate assessment.

· The high cost for construction and maintenance of the rink.

· The very high amount of energy consumed to keep the rink frozen.

· The severe division of the plaza caused by lowering 11,000 square feet of its surface for the rink, stairs, ramps and paths just to get people down to the skate office located below Adega.

· The great loss of open-sky space due to the rink-required 7,000 foot roof, which squeezes much of the open sky view down to 40 feet over much of the plaza.

The most compelling reason, however, is that Veterans Plaza needs to be more democratic than the ice rink will allow it to be.

More than 85,000 people of a broad range of incomes, races, and nationalities live within the designated service area of the Silver Spring Regional Services Center. Community can be built and renewed among such diverse peoples only by frequent interaction between many individuals of all of the diverse groups and income levels. This interaction in daily and civic activities is the traditional purpose of civic plazas in America and should be the guiding principle for the design of our plaza. A key element of that tradition is that civic plazas are open and freely available to everyone, everyday. Unfortunately, the current design for Veterans Plaza runs counter to this tradition by including, for four months of each year, a large ice rink that we will have to pay to use.

The proposed operator for the rink has indicated that there will be 35,000 users (tickets purchased) over the four months of each year, including skaters who travel from outside Silver Spring. Given that some people will use the rink frequently during the season, it is likely that fewer than 10% of Silver Spring residents will use the rink in any given year. It is also inevitable that many families who live in Silver Spring will not be able to afford the costs for skate rental and skating and will therefore be excluded from ice-skating and from the portion of the civic plaza that the rink occupies. The rink will divide lower income neighbors from the rest of our community rather than bring us together in one place.

Roger Lewis stated at the May 5^th public meeting that the plaza would succeed with or without a rink or pavilion, or with a smaller pavilion. All of the concerts, stage events, movies, shaded relaxation, dining, etc. that can be accommodated by the proposed 7,000 square foot pavilion could easily be accommodated by a much smaller pavilion that would have far less negative impact on the remaining plaza. In fact, the stage that is proposed on the design drawings is only 400 square feet in size. At the same meeting, the architect for the civic plaza indicated that the proposed pavilion grew to be as large as it is in order to protect the ice rink from rain. It’s clear from the success of the temporary “turf” that we don’t need the rink for the plaza to succeed. It’s also clear that if we don’t need the rink, we are better off with a smaller pavilion and more open space for everyone.

We will only get one opportunity to build a plaza – a cultural center - for our community. Let’s choose to do without the ice rink that will divide us more than unify us. Let’s focus our energy and funding on an open, flexible plaza with a smaller landmark pavilion that will facilitate daily renewal and will help Silver Spring evolve to be more than just a retail center, more than just diverse peoples living near each other; that will help us to better unify everyone into a whole community that benefits us all.

[Joe Sandri]

A large, intelligently designed rink serves as a focal point and "community gem". Also, allowing the rink to get covered for concerts, fair weather days, etc. gives everyone access to a "green carpet-style" option. We love the rink and plan to use it extensively.