Great Park Ice and FivePoint Arena, a community ice center in Irvine, California, that also serves as the training facility for the Anaheim Ducks of the National Hockey League, has been honored as a Facility of Merit by Athletic Business Magazine.
Designed by LPA, the $110 million, 280,000-square-foot project spotlights the vision of Anaheim Ducks owners, Henry and Susan Samueli, to create a public resource to promote ice sports and health and wellness in the region. In addition to serving as the Ducks’ training center, it also serves as the regional training center for U.S. Figure Skating.
“Great Park Ice and FivePoint Arena fulfilled the need for a community ice center in the region,” said LPA Director of Higher Education Steve Flanagan, who was the Principal in Charge of the project. “But it went beyond a utilitarian design and evolved the experience of an ice facility into an activated indoor and outdoor setting where communities can gather and create lasting memories.”
The annual Facility of Merit Awards, presented by Athletic Business, the industry trade magazine, spotlight outstanding examples in sports and recreation facilities. Winners are chosen by a rotating panel of leading architects and winners are announced in the October issue of the magazine and featured on the Athletic Business website.
“The Great Park Ice & FivePoint Arena goes above and beyond the expected for this type of facility,” said Facility of Merit Awards juror William Schenck. “I really enjoyed the restrained black and white interiors palette contrasted with the in-your-face orange and blue accent colors.”
Vice President of The Rinks Art Trottier, who oversees the facility’s operations and worked closely with LPA designers to bring the vision of the facility to fruition, has seen the impact Great Park Ice has on visitors when they explore and experience the complex for the first time. “You can see how impressed people are,” Trottier recently told LPA’s Catalyst magazine. “There’s nothing like this in Southern California.”
As the largest community ice complex in the region, Great Park Ice & FivePoint Arena is a center for hockey and skating, creating a multi-use community center with a pub, amphitheater, classrooms and an array of outdoor public spaces. The facility includes four ice sheets, with three designed to NHL regulations and the fourth designed to meet Olympic standards.
The design incorporates a visual representation of the various states of water – gas, liquid and solid ice – throughout the facility. The hallways leading to the ice are bathed in blue light created by a 700-foot undulating transparent façade with a ripple of silver fins meant to mimic the surface of the ocean.
“It is a true honor to be recognized by Athletic Business and a jury of our peers and industry professionals,” said LPA Director of Sport + Rec Arash Izadi. “As a previous Athletic Business Facility of Merit Awards juror, I know the intense scrutiny each project is put through to make this list and I am humbled to see our project spotlighted among the best in the country.”
Great Park Ice & FivePoint Arena was developed through a public-private partnership and planning process that included the City of Irvine, Griffin Structures, community developer FivePoint, Swinerton Builders and LPA. Several ice and arena specialists collaborated with LPA on the project, including ice facilities consultant 292 Design Group; mechanical engineering specialist Nelson Rudie & Associates; electrical engineering group TK1SC; and B32 Engineering, one of the country’s leading experts on ice-system engineering.
Read more about Great Park Ice & FivePoint Arena in Athletic Business article “Facilities of Merit 2020: Great Park Ice & FivePoint Arena.”
