Council approves Ice Arena overhaul

In a discussion that sometimes grew contentious, the City Council announced at last week’s meeting that it was finalizing a lease agreement with a company that will renovate a portion of the city-owned Ice Arena and build a sports training complex in the facility at no cost to the city.

The City Council voted 3-2 on March 15 to approve a lease by Lido Beach-based Building Fitness Performance Inc. of the Ice Arena’s second floor, an agreement that would include the conversion of the space into a sports-and-fitness complex that Building Fitness Performance would operate. Over a five-year lease with options to renew, BFP would pay the city $12,000 in rent per year plus 10 percent of gross sales, with a minimum guarantee of $10,000 per year.

The company responded to a request for proposals issued by the city to renovate the facility. City officials said that the aging Ice Arena is in need of repair, and that the fitness complex would generate revenue and attract more athletic teams. The company, owned by longtime Long Beach residents Hank Levin — a hockey instructor — and his father, Mitch, would assume the estimated $320,000 cost of the renovation.

The Ice Arena is currently home to five youth hockey teams that rent time on the ice, Hank Levin said, including the NY Apple Core, a local squad that plays its home games there. The upstairs space is used by a yoga and boot camp program as well as a youth center.

Dispelling rumors that those programs would be eliminated, City Manager Charles Theofan said that they would continue to be run by the city and would be relocated to a new multipurpose room that BFP would also renovate. Levin said that the existing programs might also be incorporated into the new facility.

“[BFP is] going to go to considerable expense to build a facility that we feel that there is a tremendous need for in our community,” Theofan said. “We’re also dealing with a lease that will pay us a bare minimum of $22,000 per year, and one of the components of that will be 10 percent of gross revenue of the operation. In addition to rent, the business will rent time on the ice and

generate additional revenue.”