AUBURN — Sub-20 degree temperatures have the Auburn Recreation Department staff preparing a small ice rink at Festival Plaza.

“We have the water going on it now and it should be up and ready to skate Saturday morning,” Recreation Specialist Jasmine McLoughlin said Friday.

McLoughlin said the ice should be ready to skate all weekend — and as long as the cold weather lasts.

“If there are people who would like to come down Sunday for a cute little couples skate for Valentines day, it should be there,” she said. “It might not be a bad idea.”

The weather hasn’t been kind so far to the would-be rink, or skaters, this year. The city hoped to make the rink a central focus of Auburn’s Winter Festival last month. Crews built temporary boards and put down a plastic liner and then took a week to pour water on the plaza’s concrete surface, slowly building a skating surface.

It was all for naught, as 40-degree temperatures melted the ice before the first skate.

That shouldn’t be a problem this weekend, as local forecasts are calling for sub-freezing weather through Tuesday.

“We’ll maintain it as long as the weather lets us,” McLoughlin said. “Once we get another warm-up that melts the ice, we’ll take it down. We don’t want it to be in the way of people who want to access the plaza. But as long as it stays cold and we can get good use, we want people to have it.”

There will be no supervision at the rink, McLoughlin said.

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