Since Jim Thorpe Borough approved a resolution in 2018 to renovate Memorial Hall and move its police department to the former rolling skating space on the bottom floor, the governing body has been trying to nail down funding for the project.

Over the last week, however, a petition to scrap the plan and bring roller skating back to the venue has picked up steam with 721 people giving it their online signature.

Ryan Kubishin, who started the petition (https://chng.it/7dFG4mBCpr), said the rink carries a lot of memories for him and other locals. That feeling of nostalgia drove him to try to do something about it.

“Every time I go to Memorial Hall, I always tell my wife about all the fun times I spent there as a youth,” Kubishin said in a letter to the Times News. “I decided to make a post about the current state of the rink on the Experience Jim Thorpe Facebook page, and it has been filled with people sharing their memories, and agreeing that it should be brought back for today’s families and children to enjoy. In under 24 hours, we closed in on 500 signatures.”

Background

Moving the police department to the bottom floor of Memorial Hall is part of a larger borough building project that includes heating, ventilation and air conditioning improvements to the building, relocating office staff to a portion of the hall’s top floor, and demolishing its current public works garage, also located at Memorial Park, and building a new one on property the borough owns across from the water department on West Broadway.

Spillman Farmer Architects completed a nearly $7,000 feasibility study, which recommended the plans, in 2016.

The police and borough administration currently share a building, built in 2006, along East Tenth Street.

Officials said at the time that police and borough administration departments were “currently space deficient” and a shared building entry point also created security concerns.

“When that was built, I was not in favor of it because it was not properly designed for what the borough needed,” Council President Greg Strubinger said of the current office building.

The borough raised taxes on several occasions to, at least in part, support the project including a 2.01-mill increase for 2018, 1.54 mills in 2019 and 2.56 mills in 2021. Since then, however, COVID-19 hit as the borough was preparing to bid the projects, leaving construction costs soaring and plans on the shelf.

Jim Thorpe bid the hall project and a new, 26,000-square-foot public works garage in late 2019, but bids came back at $3.72 million and $3.27 million respectively, which is around $1.5 million more each than the borough had originally estimated.

Last week, Strubinger expressed renewed faith in the projects as the borough figures on receiving over $1 million in federal appropriations funding toward the work.

“To say things haven’t gone as planned is an understatement with COVID-19,” Strubinger said. “Hopefully we can pick up now and do a little better in the next two years, specifically as it pertains to our building projects. We felt a responsibility to take care of our facilities and we’re hopeful we can move forward with the renovation of Memorial Hall, rehabilitation of Memorial Park and construction of a new public services garage. These projects can’t be let go much longer. We’ve gotten some grants and other money and we plan to rebid them.”

Petition

The online petition to reopen a roller skating rink as opposed to a police department on the bottom floor of Memorial Hall sparked many memories from when the venue was a popular entertainment destination in decades past.

“My best memories are at the skating rink,” Lori DeWire said. “First in the old building with the wooden floor and then in the new building. I was also lucky enough to take my own children there. It’s a shame it’s no longer being used as a rink. I hope this helps change that.”

For many, the rink was a first job or the location of a first date.

“This was my very first job,” Susan Marykwas said. “Although my kids are older, this would have been a great place for them to have been able to go and hang out on a Friday night like I did as a kid and many others my age.”

Kubishin said a resonating sentiment he has heard since the discussion on the rink began is that, “the town is lacking some sore of indoor entertainment.”

“Skating was a highlight of my childhood and I am sad it isn’t open,” Kaylea Basile said. “I want my daughter to have this experience. “I can tell you when kids/teenagers are bored, they turn to the wrong things for fun.”