The days of sock hops, soda fountains and roller rinks are only a distant memory of what kids and teens look forward to when the weekend hits.

As iPod, Internet and video games take center stage it's a wonder what will become of the few roller rinks left like the Southgate Skate Center in White Center.

When Pop Brown converted the original boxing ring to White Center's Southgate Skate Center at 9646 17th Ave. S.W. in the 1930's became a place for singles to hang out and have fun.

Passing the business down through the generations, the rink stayed within the Brown family, however its popularity died down as new fads and fashions came around. After 2000, the Brown family said they began to realize skating wasn't as big as it once was before.

"My grandpa was a business man but he really was a community guy also," said Tom Brown, who inherited and now owns the rink. "We initially tried to sell that building but it was our inheritance. What we realized was what we could do is change it to something the community could use."

A part of the White Center community for more than 70 years, the Brown family decided to convert the Southgate Skate Center into a community outpost and meeting place called the Southgate Event Center.

The 13,000 square foot facility is now open to all types of events from any group or activity such as conferences, large meetings, weddings, birthday parties, concerts, school events and more.

The Brown's philosophy is "to allow the client to do as much of their event planning, set up and breakdown as they wish, to save them money, or to offer them a full-service experience."

Not only acting as an event center, the building will also host weekend White Center Swap Meets beginning this weekend, Oct. 4 and 5.

Open to fit 80 indoor booths, the first 20 booths will be half-off, encouraging vendors to take advantage of the grand opening deal.

As the venues' use will change, Brown said, "The floors are staying the same. I want young kids to still have the opportunity to have skating parties. Skating will not be open to the public as a full skating rink, but we'd love to have people who want to have kids come in for skating birthdays."

The event center will be available Sunday through Friday evenings for rental from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. and swap meet hours will be Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Sundays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For more questions or information on the event center or rental and vendor fees, visit www.southgateeventcenter.com, call 206-767-0224 or email southgateeventcenter@gmail.com.

Allison Espiritu may be reached at 783-1244 or allisone@robinsonnews.com.