Advertisement
The Winona Area Youth Hockey Association currently operates the arena with paid staff and volunteers, but can’t continue to do so, said association spokesperson Chris Welle.
Welle hopes the $500,000 pledge will jump-start efforts to renovate Bud King and place it under public management.
“We felt it was important to get out of the gates and show the community we were very serious about the project,” Welle said. “We’re not looking to the community for handouts.”
The Winona City Council has hired consultants to spearhead the “Step Up” fundraising campaign, which is seeking $2.5 million in private pledges for five proposals costing a combined $8.5 million.
If supporters raise the pledges this summer, they hope to ask voters to pay the remainder of the cost through a November bond referendum.
City officials say they would issue roughly $6 million in debt for the projects, which also include a renovated Bambenek softball complex, improvements to the Lake Winona bike paths, a new community boathouse on Lake Winona and a cross-country ski trail near Saint Mary’s University.
The proposed $4.5 million ice arena renovation would add a second ice sheet to Bud King, which the city owns. It also would add all-purpose rooms and a concession area and expand the arena’s seating capacity to 1,200.
Along with the construction price tag, city officials are studying what it would cost to operate the facility.
The City Council last month received a preliminary projection of operating costs for the ice arena, which estimates a $125,000 loss in its first year of operation. Assuming increases in usage and user fees, the document projects the arena would gradually erase that deficit, netting a profit of more than $13,000 by its 10th year.
The fact that the hockey association runs Bud King is unusual in Minnesota, where many cities operate such facilities, said Rich Hultman, president of the hockey association.
Minnesota’s prevalence of publicly run arenas allows the state to maintain some of the most affordable and accessible hockey facilities in America, Hultman said.
“In Minnesota, city governments subsidize their ice arenas,” Hultman said.
Mayor Jerry Miller argues that city subsidy of parks and other services are hardly unprecedented. Winona pays roughly $50,000 annually to subsidize operation of the Bob Welch Aquatic Center, Miller said.
“Does the pool make money?” Miller said. “Does the library make money? The library is a service that we put out.”
Supporters of the Step Up campaign expect to announce more private pledges in June, said Chad Ubl, the city’s community services director.
Contact Mark Sommerhauser at (507) 453-3514 or msommerhauser@winonadailynews.com
