The Lloyd Center ice rink was never meant for competition. But skaters there made do.



Tonya Harding learned to skate there. And last year, a team of adult skaters took home fourth place at nationals. They held all their practices at Lloyd, a rectangular rink nearly 7,000 square feet shy of regulation.



That gumption impressed the developers behind a planned Lloyd Center remodel. In an era when ice skating rinks across the country are closing, Lloyd's developers say they want to preserve and redevelop the mall's rink. Plans call for rebuilding the mall around it to make the rink prettier and visible from every floor in the mall.



There's just one problem, skaters say: The beautification process will pare down the rink's footprint by 23 percent. Even the most creative competitors say they won't be able to practice there.



"It's like making a three-hole golf course and saying, 'But isn't it beautiful?'" said Lisa Ewing, a 36-year-old who competes in an adult league. "What good is a pretty picture if you can't use it the way it was intended to be used?"



Historic first



Lloyd Center's ice rink was the world's first shopping center rink when it opened in 1960.



At 175 feet by 75 feet, Lloyd's ice didn't meet national standards of 200 by 85 feet. But the open-air rink drew more than a million visitors its first two years. Jim Backus, the voice of Mr. Magoo, did a couple's routine with a bear. Bobby and Ethel Kennedy circled Lloyd's ice just a month before he died. And, as most regulars still proudly boast, it was Lloyd's ice that first inspired Harding at age 3 to take up the sport.



The mall underwent significant remodels in 1991, but the skating rink has remained largely the same, said John Fainter, a vice president for Cypress Equities, the Dallas development company that plans to rebuild it. The same machines still fill the rectangle with ice. The same machines still keep it frozen.



"We looked it as a sleeping giant that really needs to be shaken up," Fainter said. "We worked to keep the rink and see what we can do to improve it."



The overall plan for Lloyd Center is to open it up, Fainter said. Crews will take out the old "bunker fortress parking decks" and open more outdoor storefronts.



Inside the mall, Cypress designers plan to create better sightlines throughout. Crews will shift the rink over to put it dead center in the mall. Visitors will be able to see the ice from every level. A new food court will overlook it, too.



That kind of centerpiece needs to be nice-looking, too, Fainter said. To that end, Cypress is planning a new pro shop, new locker rooms and a new shape for the rink. The resulting 140-foot by 77-foot rink will be shaped more like an oval.



That's precisely what competitive skaters don't like.



"There is no tradition with the oval," said 67-year-old skater Tom Shanley. "Oval cuts out your ability to perform regulation routines. You gain speed in the corners."



A community





Shanley says he learned to skate when he was 1 -- "They had twin runners, two blades, so you didn't wobble" -- and has been skating three times a week since the rink first opened. He's built a community of several dozen fellow skaters who spend nearly 20 hours a week on the ice.



An adult team performs costumed routines at holidays. Home-schooled children complete their homework at the snack bar. Retired folks glide past on skates older than the rink itself.



Tanya March's 7-year-old son is on the autism spectrum. He had never been able to compete in team sports. When he found ice skating, he found his own kind of team, she said. March and her son ride the MAX to Lloyd Center three times a week so he can practice a routine he plans to roll out in competitions later this year.



Their routines face disruption when crews begin overhauling the rink in January and close down the ice for nearly a year.



March and others say they may go to the Winterhawks Skating Center in Beaverton, but Jesuit High School recently bought it, and they're worried school officials might close the rink eventually to expand the Jesuit campus. Other rinks in Sherwood and Vancouver aren't accessible by MAX and don't have evening public skate hours.



"They're going to break the skating community," said Mark Bouwman, whose 11-year-old daughter Christina competes.



Fainter, the developer, said his firm talked with several experts before designing a new rink. They agreed that the rink wouldn't be suitable for high-level athletes. The rink can still hold shows and skate schools, though, he said.



"We understand people who are competitive are going to need special venues for that," Fainter said. "But it'll be a great place for people to become passionate about the sport. People can learn to skate here. They can fall in love with it, and move on."



That, in fact, is exactly what Tonya Harding did. She in fell with the ice at Lloyd -- on her first trip, the 3-year-old made piles of shavings and ate them -- but the rink wasn't big enough for the routines she began doing.



Harding became a star 13 miles away at Clackamas Town Center.



That rink closed in 2003.





-- Casey Parks