City Ice Arts to close next month, reopen next year in the West Bottoms

City Ice Arts, a hub of spaces at 21st Street and Campbell that includes a gallery, artist studios and various businesses and retail operations, will meet the bulldozer in October, when a new phase of redevelopment for the Hospital Hill North area gets under way.  

“It’s been in the works for a few years now,” Dave Dumay, owner of the City Ice Arts building, tells The Pitch. “We have to be out October 1. Then they’ll knock it down and put up a dialysis center in its place.”

Burge Ice Service, which has operated in the location for 45 years, will close September 10; the construction plans dovetailed nicely with owner Joe Burge’s retirement plans. But the other tenants will be scattering to new locations. The Vow Exchange, a wedding chapel, plans to move into the new Screenland building, at 17th Street and McGee, Dumay says. La Cucharacha Press has been restoring a building at 31st Street and Cherry that it’s in the process of moving into. “And I think Craig [Howard, of membership grocery store Howard’s Organic Fare and Vegetable Patch] is planning on moving to a new location, where he’ll get better foot traffic, though I’m not sure where yet,” Dumay says. 

A few current artists will be making the trek with Dumay to City Ice’s new space. There’s no official location to report yet, but Dumay says he’s looking at two spaces in the West Bottoms. 

“Wherever we end up, we’ll at least have a gallery and an event space, plus studios for six or so artists,” he says. “And we’ll be keeping the name.”