Greenwich’s skating rink is on Sue Merz Way on a site shared with the Strazza Field, across Western Jr. Highway from Western Middle School.  The facility was built as an outdoor rink in 1971 and was designated as the Dorothy Hamill Skating Rink in 1976.  Incremental projects over the years added a roof, exterior walls and spectator seating.  The existing facility has a number of fundamental and critical issues, notably substandard ice size and inadequate, aging and non-code-compliant equipment, building systems and fixtures.  The Town intends to build a new, high quality rink facility on the property capable of serving Town users for the decades to come.  

The public Eugene Morlot Memorial Park of 13.4 acres includes the rink, the Strazza Field baseball diamond, a parking lot, a playscape, swing set, the Byram Veterans’ Memorial Tree Grove, a wooded area and a grassy hillside.  The Byram Veterans Memorial Tree Grove consists of 13 trees and a flagpole, each with a commemorative plaque in a permanently protected area of 0.6 acres.  The Eugene Morlot Memorial Park was dedicated on Veterans Day 1989 in memory of alumni of Byram School who lost their lives in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

In the approved budgets for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the Representative Town Meeting and Board of Estimate and Taxation voted to provide funds to retain architects to develop preliminary plans for the new rink. After a competitive selection process, SLAM Collaborative of Glastonbury, CT was chosen to as architects to design the new facility.  A preliminary schedule of milestones for the project is: