Penticton Outdoor Public Skating Rink
2020-2022 | Penticton, BC
In 2020, McElhanney became aware of a local group’s vision to create a public outdoor skating rink in downtown Penticton. The rink would revitalize an area used for off-street parking and add vibrancy to the community. Activate Penticton was already gathering public and corporate donations to operate the rink at no cost to the City of Penticton (the City) or the public, and our team wondered how we could contribute to this revitalization project. McElhanney Cares, our Corporate Social Responsibility program that promotes the McElhanney tradition of giving back to the communities where we work and live, was an obvious solution!
McElhanney approached Activate Penticton and the Skating Rink Society to offer professional services as part of a McElhanney Cares Community project. Both groups were enthusiastic about the arrangement, and an initial topographic survey of the site was completed in 2020. This was followed by civil servicing designs, storm water management, and parking lot grading in 2021.
The location of the ice rink presented required special planning by McElhanney’s team. Of primary concern was the ice rink’s planned position on top of an existing sanitary main that serviced City Hall. McElhanney’s team considered a sanitary main replacement protected by a casing pipe, as well as installing the new sanitary main offline from the existing one to avoid interruption. As the design progressed, it was determined that the casing pipe was not required, and that the sanitary main could be replaced in line. To avoid disruptions for City Hall, we replaced the line on a weekend and used a septic truck to deal with any sewage generated during the replacement.
Secondly, multiple storm water management configurations were considered. The final version of the system incorporated an oil/grit separator and routing that would limit the reconstruction of the surrounding roadways and lanes.
McElhanney was honoured to see McElhanney Cares at work in the support of Activate Penticton’s outdoor public skating rink.
McElhanney provided:
- Topographic survey and construction layout
- Sanitary and water servicing
- Storm water management
- Parking lot grading
