Woodbridge Township taking over skating rinks at Community Center

by Sergio Bichao on May 12th | Email

Woodbridge Township is taking over skating rinks at Community Center from United Skates of America. (Staff file photo)

Next month the ice and roller rinks at the Woodbridge Community Center will be under new management – the township’s.

Officials think the township can be rolling in money when they take over the rinks from the private company now operating them.

Mayor John E. McCormac on Tuesday announced the move before the council voted unanimously to end the agreement with United Skates of America effective June 1.

The township will pocket the nearly $300,000 in management fees it had paid to the company each year and generate more than $200,000 a year in skating fees and concession sales to be used to pay down the center’s debt.

The township will also absorb most of the skate company’s 80 employees, whose salaries the township had reimbursed the company.

“The township can now manage the facility and reap the profits and we won’t be paying upwards of $800,000 a year in fees and other types of costs,” township spokesman John Hagerty said.

“We have to look everywhere for savings and we believe we can run the rinks ourselves cheaper than paying someone else to run it,” McCormac added.

United Skates has operated the rinks, shop and concession stand at the Community Center on Main Street since the facility opened in 2002.

Extinction...Councilman Rick Dalina greets a Skate-O at the roller rink in 2008. The township and the United Skates of America company ended their agreement this week. (Staff file photo)

The company was being paid a flat yearly management fee and the township kept all the earnings from skate rentals, parties and sales at the concession stand and gift shop.

Despite paying the company performance bonuses to generate more sales, officials felt township employees would have a better incentive to make the rinks more successful.

Less than a year ago the township put a public works employee in charge of the ice rink. Last month, another public works employee, who owns a catering business, took over the concession stand. McCormac said both continue to earn their original salaries – less than $70,000 a year, records show, and less than what Skates employees had been paid, McCormac said.

"They turned it around,” McCormac said. “People are way happier. The leagues are happy, the high schools (hockey teams) are happy.”

McCormac said the township told the company they would not renew the contract when it expired in two years, but the company recently offered to leave in June. Company officials did not immediately return a call for comment left at their Columbus, Ohio, headquarters.

The rinks will likely be re-branded “The Arenas at Woodbridge.” The new concession stand already has an expanded schedule and serves healthier food.

Event coordinator Inessa Mayzelshteyn, a Skates employee who may soon be on the township payroll, said she’s already happy with changes so far.

“Everyone is really excited to work for Woodbridge Township. We know it’s a good thing for us and we’re excited to see what we can do to make this even more popular for the town,” she said Tuesday.

The township has a history of deprivatization at the Community Center. The two-level, 110,000-square-foot building was originally slated to be a privately owned and operated ice-hockey and recreation facility. But the developer, Family Golf Centers of Melville, N.Y., went bankrupt in 2000 before finishing the $12 million structure.

McCormac said he convinced then-Mayor James McGreevey to turn the project into a community center. The township used grants and borrowed money to finish the building at a cost of $16 million and paid United Skates to operate the rinks and YMCA to run the pool and other recreational facilities.

McCormac says user fees make the center self-sufficient and pay off the project’s debt, now at $14 million. The center gets about 1.5 million visits a year and the rinks and party areas can hold about 900 people at a time, officials said.

McCormac said the administration is pleased with YMCA’s management and has no plans to change their partnership.