Second ice rink planned for Sunset-Galleria area

Thursday, May 14, 1998 | 10:34 a.m.

A Canadian entertainment company planning to build 25 ice rinks in five years will be a partner in a new National Hockey League-size rink at the Galleria at Sunset mall.

ARC IceSports & Entertainment, a privately held subsidiary of ARC International Corp., announced plans for an 80,000-square-foot rink to open by late 1999.

The facility, which would include an undetermined number of spectator seats and meeting and retail space, would be attached at the east end of the mall, which is planning its own expansion with an undisclosed new anchor store.

Financial terms weren't disclosed by the mall's owner, Forest City Enterprises Inc. of Cleveland, and ARC.

The new rink plan apparently scraps a previously announced venture between the mall and Santa Fe Gaming Corp, which has proposed Santa Fe Valley, a hotel-casino project with an ice rink attached to the Galleria.

Santa Fe has said it will go ahead with its hotel-casino even if it's not connected to the mall.

And Station Casinos Inc. has announced plans for a skating facility as part of the expansion of the Sunset Station hotel-casino across the street from the mall.

Although operational plans for the mall rink have not been finalized, officials familiar with the project say the rink would be available for open skating as a recreational facility for the mall as well as for youth and adult competitive teams in the area.

ARC IceSports is a Downsview, Ontario, company that is a subsidiary of publicly traded ARC International Corp. of Toronto. Other ARC ventures include Cabletel Communications Corp., an equipment supplier for the cable television and telephone industries in Canada, and Ballantyne of Omaha, a manufacturer of motion picture projection and specialty entertainment lighting equipment in the United States.