June 5, 2024 | By Ali Longwell

After returning to the drawing board, Vail’s remodel of Dobson Ice Arena is back on track and within budget.

At its Tuesday, June 4, meeting, the Vail Town Council and Vail Recreation District board agreed on a program for the remodel, kicking the project into its next phase. The council gave the go-ahead for the project team to begin its next steps toward development, which could see construction start in March 2025.

Dobson Ice Arena was built in 1979 and has remained largely unchanged outside of a few minor remodels over the years. However, as identified in the town’s 2019 Civic Area Plan, the facility needs significant upgrades to ensure its longevity for decades.

In July 2023, the Town Council and Vail Recreation District began actively pursuing the remodel — digging into their wish lists, budget and funding. In August, the town awarded a contract to Populous Architects to begin the schematic design work for Dobson.

The Town Council has a tight $55 million budget for the remodel, driven largely by an anticipated $45 million in funds from the Vail Reinvestment Authority Tax District. These funds must be spent by June 30, 2030, on projects within its Civic Area. Additional funds for Dobson are expected to come from the Vail Recreation District, the town’s general fund reserves and its real estate transfer tax fund. The remodel is also expected to include some private sponsorship opportunities.

By the end of 2023, with an initial schematic design drawn up, the town began searching for general contractors. The bid process resulted in several proposals, all of which came in with cost estimates that were $20 million, or more, over budget.

In March 2024, with the town bringing Hyder/McHugh on board as its general contractor, the Town Council challenged the project team to find a path back to its budget while maintaining many of the programmatic elements — both those desired and those required.

A plan to boost user experience

The project team — including town staff, the architecture firm and the owner’s representative — on Tuesday presented the latest iteration of the Dobson remodel during a joint meeting of the rec district board and the Town Council.

Patrick Gleason, a senior architect with Populous, said that while challenging, the process over the past few months has led to a better design.

“We feel very strongly that the path we’ve got, that we’ve put on the table is the best of all things,” Gleason said. “We get almost every single thing that we were trying to get into the building and it will look like a very fresh new structure that will definitely serve Vail for 40 years.”

Per council direction, the project team presented the board with three options:

  • The full initial schematic design, which would entail an entire renovation (including replacement of the roof) and carry an estimated cost of $73 million
  • A base option that would bring the necessary code updates and system replacements (at a minimal level) and a general refresh of some fixtures (i.e. new paint and flooring). This carried a cost estimate of $33 million
  • A program that modified and reduced the full schematic but maintained most programmatic elements including reinforcement (but not replacement) of the roof), which carries a cost estimate of $55 million.

The latter being “the maximum program we can achieve with the target budget we had established,” said Chris Knight, with the Cumming Corporation, serving as the owner’s representative on the remodel.

The project team recommended moving forward into design development with the $55 million option, including starting the Design Review Board and Planning and Environmental Commission processes. Unanimously, the Town Council and the rec district board agreed with this plan, with the former allocating $1.45 million from the project budget to do so.

“When it was built, it reflected the aspirations of our community for 40 years. I think it’s going to reflect the aspirations of this community for 40 years going forward,” said Council member Jonathan Staufer.

The current remodel design — which will continue to be refined as the process continues— is estimated to take between 18 and 19 months to construct, meaning the community would only lose the sheet of ice for one winter season.

In getting the Dobson remodel to this option, Gleason said the team focused on the necessary upgrades first, followed by items that would enhance the user/guest experience. The team then evaluated additional “nice-to-have” items that could be added in depending on how the project and budget progress.

Dobson’s roof has been a significant topic of the remodel, with it also carrying one of the largest price tags. In the option moving forward, the roof would be reinforced — maintaining its “iconic” wooden look on the inside, adding rigging capacity for event producers and replacing the materials on the exterior.

Among the other necessary upgrades, Knight listed refreshed and expanded locker rooms (which will provide more gender equity), refreshed and expanded restrooms (bringing into code compliance with capacity), a refreshed South entry lobby while making the Western entry the “main” entry for events, and full replacement of its mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems as well as its ice sheet and system.

One item that the town is still looking to fund is the addition of restrooms on the north side of the facility. Carrying an estimated cost of $1.07 million, these restrooms would increase the arena’s capacity for larger events by about 720 seats — due to code requirements.

Adding them now puts the project above budget. While the restrooms could be added on at any point in the future, the council requested that the team continue to seek ways to include them in the current remodel.

While capacity relies partially on restroom facilities, the proposed redesign would increase the number of fixed seats from 680 to 1,091 (with the addition of bleachers on the south side) and wheelchair and companion seats from 0 to 20. Additionally, the capacity for hockey events (with fixed and standing seats) would go from 1,300 to 1,436 and from 2,840 for other events up to 3,436 (depending on the number of internal and external restrooms).

All of these enhancements would maintain “the overall look and feel of Dobson,” Knight said. “We keep the iconic structure, but we’re able to make the arena more inviting for all users.”

More than hockey

As Town Council members evaluated how the facility could serve the community for the next 40 years, there was a desire to expand outside of hockey.

“There’s too much hockey there right now,” said Vail Mayor Travis Coggin. “I believe it’s incumbent on us now to operationally plan for a broader benefit to the whole community. We need more concerts, we need more things that can generate some money so it offsets the expenses that we have to operate this facility.”

“The way this works, in my opinion, is 100% about operations,” Coggin later added.

Council member Sam Biszantz also challenged the operational expectations of the project looking forward. At the evening meeting, Biszantz pushed back on the notion that the TIFF funds must be spent on Dobson.

“This is in fact a choice we are making, to spend the entirety of TIFF funds on a facility, and to be fair it’s a decaying, low-hanging fruit … but we are making the choice to have this facility that will have a valley-wide impact,” she said.

“We are in fact choosing a hockey and event venue over other critical needs — like new municipal offices, child care, a rec center to some people, housing, the list goes on — to a lot of our community those are a lot more critical needs than hockey or events,” Biszantz said.

To make it worthwhile, Biszantz said she wanted “to see a strategy on how this facility will be more utilized,” pointing out that “hope is not a strategy.”

Council members emphasized the importance of finding another permanent location for ice in the valley.

Coggin said doing so “gives that pressure release valve so that Dobson can be programmed to have cultural benefits and economic benefits for our community that currently are lacking,” Coggin said.

However, council members noted that this burden should not rest entirely on the town of Vail.