This is the latest in a string of updates to ORDA’s winter sports venues in recent years, as the state and region gear up to host the Winter World University Games in January 2023.

Work on the Mount Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex, Whiteface Mountain Ski Center, ski jumps and Olympic Center ice rinks is underway or has already been completed.

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Money approved

The board approved spending $12.4 million on the oval, which will undergo a complete renovation inside and out over the next year.

The board also approved a $9.3 million renovation to Whiteface Mountain’s snowmaking system, which will be upgraded with new pumps and pipes over the summer to be ready for the snow season later this year.

The board approved an additional $221,687 for the Mount Van Hoevenberg base lodge and facility because the contractor needed to remove and replace “unsuitable soils” in the construction process. The total spent on this facility is now $33.1 million, according to ORDA.

The board also approved spending increases for the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center base lodge, which was damaged in an avalanche Christmas morning 2020. The original cost of the repairs and expansion was estimated at $14.6 million, but after several changes to designs and asbestos abatement the new cost is $15.2 million, according to ORDA.

ORDA has already approved $34.5 million for renovations at the Lake Placid Olympic Center — the 1980 Rink, 1932 Rink and refrigeration system that cools all the center’s rinks. The only major project at the center left to be funded is the “link building” connecting the oval with the rest of the center.

This whole taxpayer-funded renovation to the Olympic Center was estimated to cost around $100 million when it was proposed in 2019. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York’s Legislature have so far invested hundreds of millions of dollars in these upgrades in advance of the World University Games.

“None of this would be happening if we didn’t have the support of the state,” ORDA board member Betty Little said. “Along with being historic, this makes us relevant.”

The latest annual round of funding was proposed in Cuomo’s 2021-22 Executive Budget in January, which included $92.5 million for ORDA winter sports facility upgrades, including the Olympic Center. The Legislature has not signed off on that yet but in past years has approved Cuomo’s ORDA funding proposals.

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Oval construction

Construction on the oval is estimated to take 434 days, or a year and two months. ORDA CEO Mike Pratt said the majority of work should be done in time to host the FISU World Speed Skating Championships in 2022 from March 2 to 6.

A potential additional cost of $637,000 was also approved, only if asbestos is discovered in the demolition.

LeChase Construction Services LLC and Cannon Design Architecture and Engineering P.C. were selected to do the work.

The oval track itself will be replaced and reshaped. Long-track speedskating standards have changed since the 1980 Olympics and up until this point Lake Placid’s oval has been grandfathered in. This new oval will remove 7 feet of ice from the outside curve of the two big turns on either end and add those 7 feet to the inside curve. With that extra footage ORDA will have room to create a plaza for athletes and spectators on the north end of the oval. Pratt said the current steel piping will be replaced with more resilient polymer plastic pipe, and the 1977 scorekeeping building will be replaced with a smaller “Adirondack style” building.