By Lee Reinsch
Correspondent
DE PERE — The De Pere Ice Arena expects to end the fiscal year in June about $25,000 in the red, mostly due to a number of expenses related to repair and replacement of old equipment.
Director of Parks, Recreation and Forestry Marty Kosobucki said though the ice center took in $154,180.16 from ice rentals, hockey and skating, its expenses totaled $178,876.65 – leaving the $24,696.49 deficit – of those costs, $47,912.35 were building expenses, including $32,901.41 in repairs and maintenance.
“There’s quite a few things that broke this year, and that affects our bottom line,” Kosobucki said. “There are a lot of things that are probably going to break and that need attention.”
He said the arena also has about $50,000 left to pay on its $250,000 chiller system repair bill from a few years ago.
Kobobucki said major expenses to the nearly 50-year-old building in the last few years have included a condenser pump ($5,700), Freon refill for refrigeration system ($8,100), new tubing for the rink ($11,000), partial roof over the Zamboni room ($10,000) and new signage after a vandalism incident last year.
He said repair costs are being offset by surcharges of up to $30 an hour, which De Pere put in place for facility rental.
Looking ahead to future needs, Don Chilson of Brown County Ice Management said the focus will be on getting the bleacher heaters replaced at a cost of about $11,000, because that was the biggest source of complaints this year.
Chilson said another item that is reaching its life expectancy soon will be the arena’s rubber flooring.
Kosobucki said another problem is the heating system in the rink, which he said is necessary to defrost the ground so it doesn’t cause the ice to heave and the building to shift.
“They’ve been removing the ice part of the year and letting the frost work its way out. “It’s been working that way great, but it makes it a part-time facility,” he said. “The other option is to fix it.”
The last repair estimate, he said, was about $1 million.
Worth the repair costs?
Alderperson Dean Raasch said a discussion might need to take place on either “replacement or just getting rid of it.”
“Every year we look at another chunk of money to fix something else, and it’s not necessarily a fix to make it better, but a patch to make it last,” Raasch said. “I’m concerned that we are getting into a position here where we are dumping money into something that just might not be worth dumping money into much longer.”
Kosobucki said the topic had come up among user groups that something may need to be done about the ice arena in the future.
“If we’re going to fix it, great, but who’s going to fix it?” he said. “And how much is it going to cost? There’s no way that the city can pay for it all, which means there needs to be fundraising involved.”
Either way, Kosobucki said it would be a tough discussion.
“If the city would make the decision to say, ‘Hey, you know what, the ice arena isn’t our cup of tea anymore,’ it would be a really, really… emotional discussion,” he said.