By Alex Brooks
Rink Management Services Corporation, which was hired by the Town of Hoosick to study the feasibility of installing refrigeration equipment at Hoosick’s Reynolds/Gilchrest Skating Rink and expanding skating and hockey programs there, has delivered a report detailing the results of its study. The findings are rather discouraging, predicting that it would cost the Town about $65,000 annually to run the rink even after all expected revenues are taken into account.
The factors favoring the project are that there is already a building here in reasonably good condition, the Town has a million dollar grant to pay for the capital cost of the project, and Hoosac School is eager to make the rink its home ice and pay an annual contract price for it. The figure may be negotiable depending on what is provided to the school, but for the purposes of this study, an annual support payment of $50,000 was assumed. Using this figure, the study estimated total rink revenue in the neighborhood of $110,000 to $130,000, and expenses in the neighborhood of $175,000 to $185,000.
The missing component is a customer for contract ice rentals. If the Town could find another institutional customer willing to buy ice time on the same scale as Hoosac School, the project would come close to breaking even. But the consultant is quite pessimistic about the prospects for contract ice rentals. The report said that from a practical perspective, this rink would serve the Hoosick and Bennington communities, and it found those populations too small and not wealthy enough to support an ice rink and the skating and hockey programs that would be needed to keep it going. The report said, “Most ice rinks find more users in areas where household income is very much higher than the US norm, unless the rink is in the high northern tier of states.” The population of Hoosick and Bennington of 22,700 was found to be “not enough population in most markets to support a single sheet seasonal ice rink without subsidy. The small population led to Rink Management’s conclusion the facility would never break even financially.”
In addition, the study found the population to be aging and shrinking, which makes it less likely to support an ice rink as time goes on. “An ice rink’s core market is families with children,” the report said.
The report estimated zero income from contract rentals. If customers could be found who would pay for contract ice time on an ongoing basis, the annual shortfall would be reduced considerably. But the consultant tried to find such a customer, and could not. The report said, “Rink Management is unable to locate an already organized youth hockey association that would be willing to rent the ice at the proposed rink. Most new ice rinks service the overflow from the already built rinks or take clients from closed rinks. The area has one closed rink, Knickerbacker Arena in Troy. Unfortunately, the ‘Knick’ is too far for their clientele to come to Hoosick.” Rink Management also spoke with the President of the nearest New York USA Youth Hockey affiliate in Clifton Park, who said the proposed rink would not help his program because it would be too far to travel.
The report also contained discussion of the capital costs involved in installing refrigeration equipment and upgrading the facility to the standards of neighboring ice rinks. Although there are many factors involved, and decisions would have to be made about design details in order to get an accurate cost estimate, it sounded like the cost to build facilities comparable to other area ice rinks would exceed the $1 million grant that the Town has been awarded.
The Hoosick Town Board members are reading and digesting the information in the report and Supervisor Mark Surdam said he will be meeting with Hoosac School Headmaster Dean Foster to further discuss the possibilities, so that Town leaders can eventually come to decision about whether they want to take on the rink refrigeration project.