In the mid-1970s, the Ministry of Sports Culture commissioned a project for an indoor stadium, the main purpose of which was to conduct training and games for hockey players. Firstly, this is not an ice stadium or a palace – this abandoned sports complex got its name because of the proximity to it of a real-life ice stadium, and to be objective, it’s just a big ice rink in the open. Secondly, the sports complex after its construction was mainly intended for training the Dynamo football club and was completely ready for operation. At the time of the freezing of the last stages of construction work, all equipment, furniture, and sports equipment were fully brought in for installation and delivered to the warehouse of the complex. To everything else, you can add the well-known fact about this abandoned sports complex – it was built as an analog of the Moscow athletics and football complex CSKA, only without a section for athletics. The building of LFK CSKA was built in 1979 on the eve of the 1980 Olympics – we can assume that these 2 sports complexes were built at the same time. From 1977 to 1980, the NSC Olimpiyskiy underwent a large-scale reconstruction, but since this stadium did not have a roof to protect spectators and players from the weather, it is likely that Soviet officials, as always, show the greatness of the USSR and do not hit the dirt facing foreigners, we decided to build a backup option in the form of an indoor sports complex.

“Ice Stadium” is one of the darkest metropolitan buildings. The construction started in 1978,  but they were conducted extremely slowly. The stadium was built for professional training of athletes and holding demonstration games. It was soon frozen because of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 as all funds were directed to healing the effects of the nuclear accident. After the Soviet Union dissolution, all construction works at the stadium stopped. Nowadays, the place attracts only graffiti painters and urban explorers.

In 1993, the start of finishing work was planned at the facility. But in 1996, the building was abandoned, and the entrance to its territory was closed.

During the downtime, the stadium suffered severe damage due to natural causes and looting. This made the Kyiv authorities think about the future fate of the object and make the territory protected.

In 2006, the idea came up with creating an “Olympic Village” worth more than 300 million euros, but further discussion of the project did not move.

But these are all the events of bygone days… And what is happening with the sports complex, the “ice stadium” now? The marauders removed aluminum and other metal that could be easily cut and removed, even ceramic tiles were knocked off the walls and noise insulation was cut … In the summer of 2017, news quite surprising for Kyiv appeared – they want to build another Yuzhny shopping and entertainment center in place of the complex covering an area of ​​450,000 square meters. The developer promises that there will be a large sports area in the shopping center with an area of ​​about 70,000 square meters with indoor basketball and hockey courts, and access to all this is free. The start of construction work was announced at the end of 2017, the designer will be the company “Urban Experts & Leslie Jones Architecture ”(known in Kyiv for the SEC“ Ocean Plaza ”and the still not open SEC“ Republic ”). As of the beginning of 2018, work has not begun; the Yuzhny shopping and entertainment center project is still not in the public domain.

In Kyiv, they decided to complete one of the oldest long-term construction projects.

Based on an article from 2018: In the Goloseevsky district of the capital, it is planned to create a National Tennis Center. The center will be built on the territory of the Ice Stadium opposite the hippodrome on Akademika Glushkova Avenue. About it reported in an ad posted on the Prozorro public procurement website. The estimated cost of reconstruction of the building, tennis courts, and the purchase of equipment will amount to 49.5 million UAH.

Non-ferrous metal hunters and looters did not ignore the ice stadium. The case took a nasty turn and in the early 2000s, the Kyiv authorities gave a decree to allocate people to protect the facility. But it was too late – what could be stolen was stolen long ago. Only the reinforced concrete structures and the roof remained, the thieves did not disdain even the cladding and, where possible, they tore off the tiles.

At the moment, the territory and the building of the ice stadium are rented by the capital construction company-developer for a period of 25 years, until 2030.