Ice skating is a beloved pastime in the City of Holland. “It goes right along with the Dutch heritage here in Holland,” says Parks and Recreation Director Andy Kenyon. “Ice skating on ponds and frozen streams in the Netherlands is a big thing.”

The City had historically relied on ad-hoc methods for providing residents an opportunity to skate, flooding tennis courts and baseball fields when the winter was cold enough. “Over the course of the years, the winters got less predictable,” says Kenyon. “It never stayed cold enough in the last 10 years or so for us to have ice for more than a week or two at a time.”

Enter Frank Kraai. “Frank was a schoolteacher, and he had a love for ice skating and curling,” says Kenyon. Kraai had donated money to the City for many years for the creation of a skating facility. “Sometimes we’d use that money to help us with our ice rink that we would have—like I said before—the Mother Nature version,” says Kenyon. “But mostly that money just sat in an account and just kept building and building and building.”

Separately, the City started seriously looking into the possibility of a permanent ice facility. “We poked around different spots around the city where we thought it might fit,” says Kenyon. “And Frank came to the City and said, ‘Hey, I didn’t know this, but I met with my financial guy, and he told me that I’m a millionaire. I really want to have this spark a project for an ice rink.’”

“And so, we were like, holy cow, this is the greatest thing ever.”

The City eventually settled on a patch of land near what’s known as Window on the Waterfront in Riverview Park. Owned by the Holland Board of Public Works (BPW), the parcel had worn various hats over the decades: A mid-20th-century garbage dump. A disposal site for dredged material from Lake Macatawa and the Lake Michigan channel. A BPW backup power facility.

Ownership of the property was transferred from BPW to the City. Several years later, Window on the Waterfront now boasts the beautiful new Holland Ice Park. It offers skating, curling, summer concerts, and all sorts of third-space events, four seasons a year. It is the City of Holland’s entry for the 2026 Community Excellence Award.

In researching the project, Kenyon, Assistant City Manager Matt VanDyken, and Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation Garrett Thelen visited skating venues in several states. “We visited with not only the staff that were running the places, but some of the operators, the people that took tickets, what kind of software they used to sell tickets,” recalls Kenyon. “[We asked,] ‘do you need a Zamboni? What kind of other equipment do you have? What worked and what didn’t work?’”

Rather than constructing a traditional rectangular rink, the City went with a roughly figure-eight-shaped “ice ribbon.” The winding path allows skaters to move through a landscaped setting with views of the park and the nearby marshland.

Another requirement: a place for curlers. “It’s called a curling sheet. A 75-foot curling sheet. It’s about half as big as a normal curling sheet would be like at the Olympics,” says Kenyon. “Frank [Kraai] had no restrictions on the project at all other than we must build a curling sheet. So, we did. And it’s been uber-popular.”

Although Kraai passed away before the Holland Ice Park opened, he was able to attend the groundbreaking ceremony and watch as construction progressed, from his residence at nearby Freedom Village. “He couldn’t walk for very long, but he would ride his scooter down and check on the construction,” says Kenyon. “We gave him a hard hat and a safety vest.”

The total project cost was about $11.3 million. More than $6 million came from private donors, with the largest contributions coming from Kraai and the local Jurries family. Additional support came from ARPA dollars and an MEDC matching grant, crowdfunded through Patronicity.

The Ice Park had its grand opening in November of last year. Despite unusually warm weather on opening day, the refrigerated system successfully maintained skating conditions. Having learned from their research tours, the City operated multiple daily skating sessions (including learn-to-skate lessons) while limiting attendance to approximately 150 skaters at a time.

“Parks and Rec people are very, very good at punting and changing on the fly,” says Kenyon. “And so over the course of the first few weeks and months that we were open, we changed [how we do] a whole bunch of stuff.” The City hired about 40 seasonal employees to help run the facility. Despite the initial outlay, the City was pleased to discover that the Ice Park turned a profit in its first season.

While ice skating ends when winter does, Holland Ice Park is designed for year-round use. The city’s annual Tulip Time runs its ticketing operation out of the facility. The Zamboni room serves as a base for Velo City Kids, an education program that teaches kids bicycle safety skills. “They get them onto the ribbon, and they run and bike around it, learning traffic control devices—when to stop, how to yield,” says Kenyon.

There will be a summer music series this year. “We’ve got a yoga program that happens there. We’ll probably do a theater program,” says Kenyon. The Outdoor Discovery Center hosts a preschool program. And, of course, the landscaped outdoor space of the Holland Ice Park is open to residents and visitors to just hang out, connect with each other, have a picnic.

“We’re just getting the tip of the iceberg as to what the possibilities are,” Kenyon adds.

“No pun intended.”

Author

Emily Pinsuwan

Emily is the League’s full-time Content Writer, composing emails, articles, blog posts, and press releases. If you need words, she has many. Prior to becoming a word person, she was a restaurant person, handling catering, event management, and marketing; prior still, she was a teaching person, at a private boarding school in Massachusetts. Having earned a master’s degree in Classics from the University of Georgia, Emily is confident that she is the only League employee fluent in Latin. She also enjoys cooking, stand-up comedy, and is an avid gamer, having achieved level 40 on her Steam profile.