Casper City Council to hear updates on ice arena expansion fundraiser; will consider project extending deadline

CASPER, Wyo. — During its June 25 work session, the Casper City Council expects to hear a comprehensive update on the current Casper Ice Arena Expansion Fundraiser from the Casper Amateur Hockey Club, including current fundraising efforts and the status of the expansion’s project design.

The Casper Amateur Hockey Club will also ask for the council to grant an extension on the fundraising deadline, pushing it back to Dec. 31 in consideration of potential funding for the arena’s desired second sheet of ice.

To view this portion of the City Council work session live, as well as the other agenda items that the council will address, see the linked video below.

City Council Work Session YouTube stream

The financial aspects of the expansion project have changed since the preliminary concepts from 2022, when the project’s estimated cost was $13.2 million. In May 2023, the City Council approved a $3.2 million commitment to the project if the hockey club could raise the remaining balance, according to the memo sent to City Manager Carter Napier.

The club then paid for the design process in its entirety, which came to $530,000, according to the memo. Based on that design, the newly estimated cost of the expansion is about $20 million, which includes a mezzanine level for increased spectator capacity.

Given this new financial information, the Casper Amateur Hockey Club’s update will include funding strategies, timelines, bidding and construction goals.

Second sheet of ice project could potentially be paid for by Casper voters

The Casper Ice Arena also stands to gain funding from voters if the City Council decides to include a project that would grant $5 million to the arena for a second sheet of ice on the ballot as part of the Specific Purpose Sixth-Cent Sales Tax that voters will see and vote on in November.

The council would first have to recommend that the project be added to the ballot and then it would have to be approved by voters before that funding is secured. The first step of that project’s journey, getting on the ballot, will be decided tonight at the Tuesday work session.

Because the ice arena fundraiser update is listed on the agenda prior to the Sixth-Cent project list portion of the meeting, the fundraiser deadline would have to be extended first before the fate of the $5 million ice sheet project is determined.

To read the full City Council work session agenda, including the other items that the council will give direction to, see the document below. The portion of the packet regarding the fundraiser covered pages three and four.

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