WARRENDALE — The hockey teams for Mars and Seneca Valley high schools still have a place to play.

The Marshall Township supervisors Tuesday night turned down a rezoning request made by the Grace Community Church that would have transformed Bladerunners Ice Complex into a church.

Those two school teams plus other hockey teams play at Bladerunners.

The township planning commissioners earlier this month voted against recommending the supervisors allow the rink, which is in Thorn Hill Industrial Park, to be rezoned from planned industrial park to highway commercial.

The church requested the zoning change because it is interested in buying the building for expansion. The church's building on Mystic Pine Trail is too small for the growing nondenominational church.

Bladerunners is home ice for the Mars, Seneca Valley and Ambridge school districts; North Pittsburgh Wildcats Hockey; Slippery Rock University men's and women's hockey; and numerous adult hockey teams.

Bladerunners was put up for sale in July 2008 for $6.15 million by its owner, Kratsa Development of Pittsburgh, because maintenance and utility costs are too high.

Planning commission members voted against the rezoning because of worries about the possibility of future uses of the rink such as care homes or shopping centers.

The Rev. Allen Osterwise of the Grace Community Church has said church officials have been looking for new properties for two years. Worship service attendance there has risen from 300 per weekend in early 2006 to 1,400 per weekend this summer.