Daily Staff Writer

Ice arena receives grant

The city of Ames has received a verbal commitment from the state for a $100,000 grant for the new Ames/ ISU ice arena, a city official said.

Nancy Carroll, Ames director of Parks and Recreation, said the grant will be awarded by the state Department of Economic Development, and it has not yet been specified what the money will be used for.

“I don’t know for sure the terms of the grant,” she said.

Carroll said the grant could be used for a variety of work on the arena that hasn’t been contracted out, including expanding the existing parking lot, putting in exterior lighting or creating a concrete floor.

“We asked for a total of about $490,000 [from the Department of Economic Development],” she said. “We just want to try to get some extra features if we could.”

The contract for the bulk of the construction was assigned to Harold Pike Construction for $3.144 million.

Ames residents will be paying $1.7 million, and an equal amount of money will come from ISU students’ fees. Another $300,000 was raised by the ISU Foundation.

—Tara Payne