Rinks have potential buyers
Two ice rinks that have been for sale for more than a year have potential buyers, but only one will remain an ice rink if the sales go through.
Bladerunners in Warrendale, Allegheny County, has a prospective buyer that will not use the large, double-rink facility for ice sports.
Jim Lybarger of Kratsa Properties, which owns three Pittsburgh-area Bladerunners complexes, said corporate policy prevents him from naming the interested buyer for the facility just south of Cranberry Township.
Bladerunners, which has been for sale for $6.5 million for a year, is home ice for the North Allegheny, the Seneca Valley, the Mars and the Ambridge school districts. Slippery Rock University's men's and women's hockey teams also play at Bladerunners, as do the North Pittsburgh Wildcats, an amateur hockey organization that has 20 teams.
Lybarger said while the sale is necessary because of high overhead at the facility, hockey clubs need not fear.
"We have guaranteed our customers that their ice contracts through April 2010 will be honored," Lybarger said. "Even if the deal is closed, we will lease the building off the new owners until all ice contracts have expired."
He could not say when the sale might be finalized, what type of facility the building would be or the sale price.
Bob Simpson, owner of Ice Connection of Pittsburgh on Route 8 in Middlesex Township, said the sale of his single-rink facility could be closed in two to three months pending bank approval of the loan.
Simpson, who also would not name his prospective buyer until the deal is finalized, said the facility would remain an ice rink and little would change under the new ownership.
Simpson would be hired as a consultant, and his wife would continue to teach figure skating for five years. Simpson is selling the rink to spend more time with his family and on his steel reinforcing business.
He said several parties have visited the building in the past year, mainly because at $1.1 million it is affordable, and it is profitable because of low overhead.
"The big-box rinks are in trouble," Simpson said. "These multimillion dollar facilities, they just don't make enough to survive."
Simpson said high utilities and taxes coupled with purchasing and maintaining maintenance equipment all but preclude ice rinks from charging what they need just to cover expenses.
He has talked with officials from the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League, the governing body for all high school hockey clubs, to discuss costs for ice time.
"They just hung their head," said Simpson about the future of ice rinks. "They said 'we don't know what we're going to do.'"
He said he knows of several Pittsburgh area ice rinks that are facing financial disaster if they don't find a buyer soon.
"It's a shame," said Simpson of the potential closing of rinks. "With the Penguins' success, we could really build and get some good players out of Pittsburgh."
Ice Connection is home to hockey teams from the Butler, the Pine-Richland, the Hampton and the Deer Lakes school districts, the 11-team Butler Valley Youth Hockey league and Community College of Allegheny County teams.
