The George Gipp Ice Arena, in Laurium, is in need of a new ice plant. A gofundme account has recently been started. (Photo Courtesy of the Village of Laurium)

LAURIUM — For the past several months, Laurium has been campaigning to raise funds to renovate the George Gipp Ice Arena and replace its ice generating plant. The current ice plant dates to 1976.

So far, the Village has fund raised $250,000 out of its $325,000 campaign goal for Phase 1 of the project.

“We’re still needing funds,” said Village Trustee Jeff Erickson. “We’re $50-75,000 short of being able to do Phase 1, which is the ice plant.”

Erickson said he has spoken with St. Cloud Refrigeration, of Minnesota, and discussed re-sleeving the pipes to 1-inch and using Calcium Chloride. He has also talked with Bassett Mechanical Contracting, of Kaukauna, Wis.

“From the sounds of it, if we can get our funding in place, and we can commit to whatever package we’re going with the Mechanicals, the ice equipment suppliers, our drop-dead date is June First,” Erickson said.

“We need to have everything ordered, everything into this project by June 1, in order it to hit the November time line. This is to have everything operational, have everything complete by mid-October, testing of the system and ready for ice by our normal schedule, which is November.”

The village has received support from a number of organizations and individuals. Michigan Tech donated floor space at its Feb. 21 hockey game against Ferris State. The floor space was for a kiosk for a space to start a crowd sourcing campaign. Erickson said Michigan Tech would also play a video on its video boards that was created by Trustee Andrew Erickson.

“What we want to do is do a fundraiser for the Gipp at the Coloussium and that would happen Friday Night of the Gibson Cup (April 4). And because the Gipp is used for mite tournaments, I talked to officials at the Wolverines, and the first period we can some of the mite players and some of the coaches are putting together a little mite scrimmage. So yeah, we’re going to hopefully raise some funds and hopefully get up some interest in getting this final push.”

Phase II of the arena project, replacing the boards and glass, is estimated at $200K, the flooring phase is estimated at $700K. Erickson said the new glass, will be higher than it is right now for safety reasons. The total cost of the project is about $1.1 M.