Over the past several years, proposals for privately operated indoor skating rinks in Bend have raised the expectations of the local skating community – only to vaporize.

Even Mother Nature has been uncooperative. Warm weather forced the local park district to abandon its skating program at Shevlin Park for the past two seasons.

But one thing has remained constant over the years: the pint-size ice sheet at the Inn of the Seventh Mountain. The half-scale skating rink is the one and only place in Bend that figure skaters, hockey players and Sunday strollers can count on to provide a consistent sheet of ice during the winter months.

Next year, there will be a bit more ice to go around.

The resort has plans to expand the rink by at least a third to 8,000 square feet, making the ice sheet a centerpiece for the resort’s $20 million makeover.

With a new refrigeration system and the possible addition of a light fabric covering to shade the ice from direct sunlight, resort operators hope to extend the skating season by at least two months.

”We’ve seen the growth in the community just with the amount of people coming up and skating,” said Clarence Hofheins, the resort’s general manager. ”We have a wonderful opportunity.”

Resort officials have yet to settle on a final design for the rink, but preliminary plans show an oval-shaped sheet of ice set between the Inn’s main administration building and a revamped conference center. Drawings depict an elevated walkway encircling the rink with an outdoor fire pit for skaters and guests to lounge beside the rink.

Hofheins said the Inn initially considered constructing a full-size skating rink, approximately 16,000 square feet, but found itself without the necessary space, even after the demolition of the existing recreation center building. The building, which sits on the south side of the rink, will be razed to make way for the new ice sheet.

Instead, the Inn settled for a smaller rink, putting the emphasis on the design. Some of the original plans included proposals that would have added trees to the ice sheet.

”We don’t want to take away the ambiance of what the core facility has,” Hofheins said.

But there is also the possibility that a design that is more appealing to recreational skaters may leave some others out in the cold.

In addition to public skating, the Inn also provides the sole venue for a youth hockey program and a men’s traveling team.

Hofheins said the resort wants to maintain its connection to the local hockey program. But resort managers have yet to decide whether the final design for the rink will include boards, a key ingredient in all hockey rinks.

Hofheins said the Inn is currently exploring the possibility of purchasing removable boards that could be added for hockey games and practices and then removed.

The weekly youth hockey nights at the Inn can draw as many as 45 young skaters, as was the case last week, said Hofheins.

”It’s gotten really big,” said Janet Nelson-Shofstall, recreation director at the resort.

She estimated that the number of skaters, both recreation and hockey players, has doubled since last year at the rink.

If hockey players are effectively displaced from the rink, there are few options left, save a drive to Eugene or Portland.

The most recent proposal for a rink went south when the primary investor defaulted. Cascade Arena, as the company called itself, sought to build a rink with two sheets of ice, one of which could have been converted for use as a roller hockey venue, and a restaurant.

The company secured land as well as the necessary construction permits for the facility in the Old Mill District. Crews had already completed grading on the site and construction materials were already starting to arrive when the financing fell through on the project. That was almost four years ago.

Other people have investigated the idea in the meantime.

This past summer approximately 50 local residents gathered at a restaurant in Bend to discuss the feasibility of a year-round indoor skating rink.

Cindy Kauffman-Marshall was among those who attended. A former Olympic skater and national pairs figure skating champion in the late 1960s, Kauffman-Marshall came to Bend to teach figure skating at the ill-fated Cascade Arena and decided to stay. Since then she’s been a strong proponent of an indoor ice sheet in Bend.

Kauffman currently teaches figure skating at the Inn of the Seventh Mountain. In the summers, she brings her students to rinks in Eugene and Portland.

Kauffman said she is excited about having a larger sheet for her pupils.

”A bigger rink is really going to help,” she said.

Since the announcement of Inn of the Seventh Mountain’s plans to expand the ice sheet, Kauffman-Marshall said the indoor rink construction discussion has died down.

And with spiraling increases in land costs it’s getting more difficult than ever to just to find a site for a new facility.

Monte Clouston said he explored building a sheet as recently as this past summer. Clouston, a general contractor who moved here from Seattle four years ago, said he wanted to build an ice rink as an investment. He located a piece of land that was available at a reasonable price. Then he did the math and found that he was likely to lose $100,000 on the venture in the first year, based in part on research done by the backers of Cascade Arena, said Clouston.

Clouston, who grew up playing hockey in Seattle, has a son skating in the youth program at the resort. He remains a supporter of building a rink in Bend but said it will likely take a some kind of public subsidy, such as a land donation by the city or park district to make it work.

The Bend Metro Park and Recreation District, which is in the process of planning a $26 million bond issue for a new swimming pool and recreation center as well as improvements to the existing Juniper Swim and Fitness Center, has yet to wade into the discussion of an indoor skating rink, said Jim Young, a park board member.

”I don’t know why we don’t have (a rink),” he said. ”I guess the reason is because there hasn’t been a vocal demand.”

Other Oregon communities have struggled to get ice sheets built. The Klamath Falls city council twice voted against a rink proposal before Jeld-Wen donated land for the facility on the grounds of its Running Y Resort, according to an account published in the December issue of ISI Edge, an industry trade magazine.

The indoor-outdoor facility, which features a full-size ice sheet and a fabric roof supported by wooden columns was built with a mix of public dollars, donations and grant funding.

Supporters point to such projects as evidence that Bend, which has about 20,000 more residents than Klamath Falls, can support a year-round ice skating venture.

Butch Roberts, a minority partner in the failed Cascade Arena, said he remains determined to get something built here. Regardless of whether or not he personally succeeds, Roberts said he is convinced that is a matter of ”when” and not ”if” Bend will have an indoor ice sheet. ”It is going to happen. There are too many people who have wanted it for too long for it not to happen,” Roberts said.

Eric Flowers can be reached at 541-383-0323 or eflowers@bendbulletin.com.