I had a look around today, the outside is not that high quality, the white patches at the bottom of the arena did look like glass in the original renders, and i think it needed this to lift the overall striped panels quality. The entrance felt a bit mean in space and sparse, with the credit card machines not working on opening day! I managed to accidentally get through a security door and see into both the ice rinks. Again the public rink felt meanly decorated, blank walls with the rink almost touching all 4 sides gave quite a claustrophobic and boring feel. The main arena was nice though, the seats broke up the blank walls and added some colour, and the felt better quality, i think this would have been a much nicer space to skate as it gave people somewhere to sit while taking a break from skating. The little cafe felt too small and cold and uninviting, the area for getting your skates was also very very small, with all interiors painted stark white giving a cold uninviting feel, that probably falls short of the intended ice and winter theme they intended. I think overall it is a good arena, much better than what i remember the city center on being, but not as huge step forward considering how many years its been since the initial conception of the city center ice rink. One nice thing about the arena though is the nice square between it and the pool, felt nice and gives an impression of what the area could look like in the future.
20160312_170110 by
Stephen Anstiss, on Flickr