MADISON, Wis. — On Monday, the City of Madison Finance Committee approved a proposal to restructure the ownership of the Hartmeyer and Madison Ice Arenas, which are on thin ice financially.
“I think they’re a viable component to a healthy lifestyle in the city of Madison,” said Stu Taylor, executive director of Madison Ice Inc., or MII.
About 16,000 people use either the Hartmeyer Arena on the city’s east side, or the Madison Ice Arena on the west side. “Our learn to skate program is the largest in the state, might be one of the largest in the Midwest,” Taylor said.
“Just last week, we had maybe four or five public skating events. Obviously, the weather wasn’t conducive to outdoor skating, with the warm weather we had in December we had over 900 people come through our doors in four different days65% of those individuals didn’t own a pair of skates, they had to rent from us,” he said.
The proposal would forgive $1,613,365 in outstanding debt, provided the non-profit East Madison Ice Collective (EMIC) takes over the Hartmeyer Arena for $1, and raises about $3 million in three years.
MII would continue owning and operating Madison Ice Arena.
“(This) really involves all these layers of protection that the city put in so that if they have a problem making this happen, they can’t raise the $3 million, they decide that the best approach is to do something else,” District 19 Alder John Guequierre said. “That’s why there’s years before the whole thing is forgiven, things have to happen at that period time.”
The City of Madison owned and operated the facilities until 2004, when they sold them to MII via a 30-year land contract, with no operating subsidy, for $1,075,240.
MII paid the city $446,518 toward the land contract to date and invested over $5 million into both buildings since 2010.
The city refinanced debt in 2011 and 2017, along with a $1,075,240 capital improvement loan.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the ice arenas closed down. The city restructured the debt requiring $0 of payments in 2021 but principal and interest payments of about $120,000/year from 2022-January 2028.
According to the city, MII has not made any payments since 2020. The two reportedly began talking paths forward in 2023 when MII recognized they were in default of the loan agreement.
According to Guequierre, the Finance Committee proposed either selling the arenas to a developer to turn them into market-rate apartments, or the city developing it into affordable housing.
“That usually means that the city needs to make an investment to make that possible because you just can’t do it, at an affordable rental rate,” Guequierre said. “So that might be kind of a cash break-even. We’d get something, but we’d have to put something back in.”
The other proposal involved the city reclaiming ownership — as well as $3 million in capital improvements.
“That would probably be the most expensive operation, not what Finance decided the best option because of our current tight budgets and so forth,” Guequierre said.
The Finance Committee heard public comment and ultimately went with the split ownership proposal.
“My first reaction when I heard about the problem was, ‘let’s grab them and turn them into affordable housing,’” Guequierre said.
But Guequierre said the services the two arenas have provided, including adaptive hockey and skate programs, were too valuable to lose.
“I think I was particularly touched, as I think members of the finance committee were, about how these are used, unlike some other arenas and so forth,” he said. “Weighing that issue of, ‘what could we get out of them versus the service that is being provided, could that be picked up by any and any other party?’ Not at any time in the near future.”
According to Taylor, this proposal would allow MII to use some of their operational funds on improvements.
“Spring and summer ice time (is) really difficult, if not impossible on the west side because we don’t have a dehumidification system that would sustain that type of operation in the summer,” he said. “Obviously, one of the biggest things we’d have to do on the west side right away would be put in a proper dehumidification unit and upgrade our air handling so we could sustain that on the west side.”
“The rink floors themselves are the old sand base, it’s not a concrete floor. So we’d like to make some changes to do that,” Taylor said. “There’s also roof needs here on the west side, we recently did some repairs to buy us some time but again, you know, this rink was built in the early 70s, and you know, as those types of things are not going to go away.”
The Finance Committee recommended the Common Council approve the proposal at its next meeting on January 14.
