Though plans for a massive, record-breaking ice palace for the 2018 St. Paul Winter Carnival melted a couple of months ago when the millions of dollars needed to build it couldn’t be raised, organizers announced Thursday that a “People’s Ice Palace” will be built in Rice Park.
A free, seven-story ice palace will be part of the annual winter celebration, which will be extended an extra week (Jan. 25-Feb. 10) to coincide with Super Bowl festivities in Minneapolis.
Plans had originally focused on building an enormous ice palace on the State Capitol grounds, and when that didn’t work out, carnival supporters said they continued to look at other options. Dan Stoltz, chairperson of the committee working on the palace, said it was significant to announce the cold castle construction on the first day of winter.
“We had one mission,” Stoltz said, “to create a spectacle that would be free and family-friendly.”
The People’s Ice Palace will be built on the south side of the park and be connected to other ice structures and the ice carvings that are a traditional part of the annual Winter Carnival. Visitors will not be able to walk through the ice palace, which will feature lights, sound and six towers – one for each of the Winter Carnival legend figures: King Boreas, Queen Aurora and the princes of the four winds.