After a solid five-year run that’s brought an estimated 65,000-plus visitors, the Inner Harbor’s seasonal ice rink may not be returning this winter.
The rink’s manager, the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, announced today that it has just over five weeks to secure a new lead corporate sponsor for the attraction. The nonprofit put the word out in April that it needed to find a new backer after Pandora Americas, which has a 24-floor corporate office in the Inner Harbor, backed out after four years of financial support.
“Since then, the organization has had many conversations and spoken with several interested parties, but a new, viable sponsor has not yet come forward,” the Waterfront Partnership said in a statement today. “Should the organization not have any meaningful discussions with engaged prospective sponsors by September 1, 2019, the Inner Harbor Ice Rink will not return for the upcoming season.”
The organization’s president, Laurie Schwartz, told Baltimore Fishbowl the timing of Pandora’s withdrawal, months after the harbor-side rink had closed up shop, “hampered our efforts” to find a replacement financier.
“It would have been much easier to show prospective sponsors the rink and the benefits of the rink if it was in operation,” she said.
And despite those aforementioned conversations with prospects over the last few months, no company or organization has committed the $115,000 she said is needed to operate it each year. That sum covers the chiller, Zamboni, staff, rental skates and other expenses.
At this point, the Waterfront Partnership is aiming to secure $100,000 in financing and would raise the remaining $15,000 from smaller sponsors on its own.
The rink was previously a late fall and wintertime mainstay at Rash Field, but the city stopped hosting it in the mid-2000s. It made a comeback in 2014 with backing from Pandora and others, setting up for a year at McKeldin Square before relocating with a larger, 6,000-square foot rink closer to the water in the amphitheater space.
With a little over a month to go now, Schwartz hopes to see another sponsor step up.
“It’s been a holiday tradition and something that so many local families and visitors look forward to every year,” she said. To lose it “would remove a piece of fun from the Inner Harbor, and from people’s holidays in Baltimore.”
There will still be another pricier option on the waterfront come November. The Four Seasons in Harbor is planning to bring back the synthetic ice rink it introduced last year on its fifth-floor outdoor terrace, spokeswoman Christina Criss said today.
Details are still being finalized, she said.
It will likely be pricier, though you’re paying for the view. Admission at the Four Seasons last year cost $25 per adult and $15 per child, plus $5 for skate rental, versus $10 for most adults and children ($9 for veterans) and $4 for skate rental at the Inner Harbor.
