By Jason Schoonover, Austin Daily Herald

AUSTIN — As the Austin Bruins took to the Riverside Arena ice earlier this week ahead of the team’s upcoming season, the city of Austin was in the early stages of planning upgrades to the arena’s equipment.

The Austin City Council accepted a $20,000 bid from Hammel, Green & Abrahamson Inc. earlier this week to study, design and form a bid package for arena upgrades slated for next summer.

The work will include the arena floor, in-floor piping, compressors, roof air conditioning units and boiler heating systems.

“All of those items are original to the building, which was constructed in 1973,” Public Works Director Steven Lang said.

Much of the equipment is well beyond the expected lifespan, he said.

The work will include replacing a cooling tower from 2003, potentially replacing R22 freon, which is being phased out of the industry, and it could include dehumidification.

The city has a short window for the work, which is slated for next summer. When the Austin Bruins returned to the ice earlier this week, it showed just how long the ice season is. Stretching from late August through May, it means that arena equipment is tasked with making ice when temperatures can creep to the 80s and even 90s.

“The equipment just does not stand up to those warm temperatures,” Lang said. “It makes it very difficult to hold that ice temperature around 20 degrees fahrenheit.”

After HGA’s evaluation, the city will begin to work on the scope of the project. Total cost estimates are not known at this time.