New floor installed at Lowe's Skateway

Nothing lasts forever, and that includes the floor of Lowe’s Skateway.

After 30 years and the pounding of generations of skaters, the special coating on the 11,000 square foot floor of the skating rink lost its adhesion and is in the process of being replaced.

“This is quite the undertaking deal,” said David Lowe, who now operates the rink started by his father, Bill Lowe. “I could have bought myself the finest  car out there for what this is  going to cost.”

The skateway building was built by Crossland Construction in 1981, and Lowe  called the company to get their advice.

“Our rink was one of Crossland’s first jobs in Pittsburg, and one of the largest jobs they’d had up to then,” Lowe said. “If it wasn’t for Crossland Construction and Ivan Crossland Jr., I’d be in a world of hurt right now. I  called at about 5:30 or 6 p.m. one evening, and around 9:30 a.m. the next day they called back and said they had a guy lined up for us and he was on the way.”

That was Chad Thomsen of Densified Concrete Services, Gardner, who was already working on a job, but dropped it when Crossland called and said he was needed in Pittsburg.

“They scraped off as much as they could of the old floor, then had to diamond-grind it down to the concrete,” Lowe said. “It took nine times grinding the floor to get it perfect.”

After the grinding was done, there was concrete dust everywhere.

“On Monday there was so much dust on the floor you couldn’t see the pattern in the carpet,” Lowe said. “My wife worked with me until 1:30 a.m. cleaning up, and I went on working.”

He finally got the place cleaned up and ready for the next step. Working at the rink now are Mike Munden, Jim Gatewood and Heath Finkemeier. Munden said that they are employees of RC Sports, the nation’s largest roller sports distributor.
“I started helping a guy who does floor resurfacing, so now that’s what I do in the summer,” said Munden, who recently purchased that business, Big Beard LLC, Lenexa.

Gatewood said that the next step will be to acid-etch the floor twice.

“Then it will need to rest for seven days,” he said. “When we come back we’ll do the concrete primer and then the base coat. The floor will have to set for 18 hours, and then we can spray on the Rink Cote. After 36 hours, you’ll be able to skate on it.”
Spraying on the coating is not a pleasant procedure, Gatewood said, because the stuff has a nasty odor.

“We have to wear respirators while we spray, otherwise we wouldn’t make it halfway through,” he said.

Hopefully, the new floor may last as long as the old one did. Gatewood said that the life expectancy of the old floor when it was put on was 20 years, but it lasted 10 years longer.

“A lot of rink owners will turn off the air conditioning when they’re closed for the summer, but Dave Lowe keeps it the AC or the heating on all year round,” Munden said. “That helped with the longevity of the floor.”

He and Gatewood had high praise for Lowe’s Skateway.

“This rink is clean, well organized and up with the times,” Gatewood said. “I was in a rink last week where you’d think you had walked back into the 1960s. It was an embarrassment.”

Munden said he felt Pittsburg was lucky to have a rink as nice as Lowe’s.

“A lot of small towns don’t have anything this nice,” he said. “Dave cares about skating because it gives kids something to do, and he  has a safe place for them here.”

The rink has been closed for the last month, but Lowe hopes to reopen it on Aug. 24. It has been open only on Fridays during the summer.

Lowe said there was only one good thing about the rink being closed down.

“Since this opened in 1981 I haven’t had a Friday night off,” he said.

But he’ll be happy to see the place open, with lots of youngsters and even some adults skating on the new floor.

“The last skating rink floor I put in was in Birmingham, Ala., about 1 1/2 years ago,” Gatewood said. “When Lowe’s re-opens, Pittsburg will have the newest skating rink floor in the United States.”