Maple Grove Community Center’s Third Ice Rink Now Open
A major part of the first phase of the expansion at Maple Grove Community Center is now open, as teams could begin practicing Friday on the third ice hockey rink at Maple Grove Community Center.
The third ice hockey rink at Maple Grove Community Center opened on Friday.
“We’ve been working on scheduling with OMGHA hockey to make sure they can get here and practice on the new rink,” said Chuck Stifter, director of parks and recreation for the City of Maple Grove in an interview earlier in the week. “We’re excited to provide that and finally get to the finish line here with rink use.”
Stifter said spectator areas, including the renovated and expanded lobbies and concession areas, should be open by January 9th ahead of a weekend tournament the facility is hosting that weekend.
“We’re excited to finally open the doors,” he said.
Phase Two
Meanwhile, work continues on finalizing design details for Phase Two of the project, which will take several more years and involve closing portions of the community center. Stifter hopes city council will sign off on design documents at its meeting on January 20, which will help move the phase two process through to bid later in the spring.
He said the closures could begin later this year.
“(In) September, we’ll be shutting down aquatics–both indoor and outdoor aquatics–so we’ll be taking that down in September of ‘26,” said Stifter. “Not til 2027, March-April, we’ll start to take down other portions of the building, starting with the indoor gymnasium area, which will be the future meeting room area and conference room space and then moving toward the Lifetime area and the aquatics area more to the east.”
Lifetime Fitness’ current facility will then be incorporated into the community center.
“The building as a whole will be shut down starting toward July of ‘27 where we will have no public access in this building at any time,” said Stifter. “We’ll continue our building construction and progress through 2027 into ‘28. The building is, and we’re still looking at the final schedule, is likely to open in phases as well.”
