ST. PAUL, Minn. - The group hoping to build an ice palace in St. Paul during the 2018 Saint Paul Winter Carnival has cancelled their plans.
The Ice Cold Events, LLC announced that they do not have all the funding or sponsors in place to cover the costs of the plan.
The plan was to build the palace as part of the Winter Carnival and make it available during the Super Bowl LII festivities.
Ice palace organizers released a written statement that referred to past financial challenges associated with ice palaces. According to the release in 1992 an ice palace was built on Harriet Island in conjunction with Super Bowl XXVI hosted at the Metrodome. The palace cost $1.1 million and led the St. Paul Winter Carnival Association to file for bankruptcy despite 2.5 million visitors to the palace.
According to Ice Cold Events a minimum budget of $5 million would need to be met to build an ice palace in 2018.
Executive Director of Ice Cold Events Rosanne Bump wrote, “We looked at every possible idea to see if we could find a way to make the palace happen,” Bump said. “We just reached a point where we felt it was no longer possible to make an ice palace that would be a viable and fiscal reality. We understand that some will be disappointed, but we hope everyone understands that we want to remain a a strong organization that is capable of carrying forward the Saint Paul Winter Carnival tradition for another 130+ years.”
The Saint Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation is still planning on extending Winter Carnival 2018 for an additional week to coincide with Super Bowl LII.