| By Neil Johnson, Big Radio News Staff |
Hey, Janesville … Beloit might want to build a new hockey arena, too.
It’s maybe five or six years off from happening, but a consultant for Visit Beloit says the 42-year-old Edwards Ice Arena at Telfer Park could be rehabbed with a second sheet of ice added for $15 million.
Or a new two-sheet ice arena — maybe at another location in Beloit — could cost $18 million.
Consultant Conventions, Sports & Leisure International presented a draft market feasibility study this week on future ice arena concepts.
The group says an analysis of the regional population shows there could be 800 to 1,000 people in the stateline area — along with at least a half dozen traveling hockey tournament organizations — that would use a two-sheet ice arena in Beloit.
Edwards Ice Arena is a one-sheet ice rink that is now used by a half-dozen youth hockey programs, but the demand for the single sheet is enough that Visit Beloit’s consultant says Edwards is anywhere from 240 to 450 ice hours short of meeting demand.
Conventions, Sports & Leisure President Joel Feldman says Beloit could become a hub for regional hockey tournaments — with a potential regional draw for 103,000 new visitors to Beloit annually through hockey games and regional hockey tournaments alone.
That’d be on top of the facility being robust enough to satisfy Beloit’s local need for ice. Feldman showed data that indicates other nearby arenas in Monroe and Stoughton tend to absorb some of Beloit’s unmet demand for ice.
He says that amount of capacity and potential use would only be possible if Beloit can add a second sheet of ice, either through adding to Edwards or building an all-new facility.
Feldman says depending on where it’s located, a two-sheet ice arena at Beloit would be about 12 miles from the future Woodman’s Sports and Convention Center in Janesville.
The Woodman’s Center, a two-sheet ice arena that’s being built now at Uptown Janesville, will open in fall 2025.
It’s expected to be the main home for the North American Hockey League’s Janesville Jets and the Janesville Bluebirds high school co-op team and also draw thousands of people a year to regional hockey tournaments.
That’s the same traveling tournament market that a Beloit ice arena could tap.
Feldman, who lives in hockey-heavy Minnesota, tells Big Radio he doesn’t think a two-sheet Beloit ice arena would dilute the market for either Beloit or Janesville’s Woodman’s Center.
In fact, he says, one arena might specialize in drawing certain divisions of youth tournaments while the other arena could draw from different age brackets.
“They might actually be able to form regional partnerships” that would have mutual benefit, he says.
Feldman’s group says the Edwards Ice Arena has refrigeration mechanicals that are becoming obsolete and face possible decommissioning under federal environmental standards as early as 2030.
The ice arena’s aging mechanicals could cost millions of dollars to replace even with used parts that match the current system.
The group says the Edwards Ice Arena could be revamped with a second sheet added or replaced with two brand new sheets — and could cost anywhere from $450,000 to $580,000 a year to operate.
Open questions include whether a new ice arena would have one or two open-air rinks like Edwards, or if they’d be indoor facilities.
And it’s not clear whether Edwards would even get a revamp.
Feldman says he thinks it’s possible that stakeholders who would fund an ice arena upgrade might want to build a new one at a new location — a plan that could cost $18 million to $20 million.
Feldman says it’s not something his group delved into, but there’s a possibility Edwards could be decommissioned as an ice arena and rehabbed for its main summertime use as a pavilion in Telfer Park.
Then, it could be an upgraded amenity for local events, and expos or weddings.
That, in turn, might make it possible to create an ice arena the likes of the future Woodman’s Center that could have flexible use outside of hockey season as indoor turf or hardcourt space for indoor soccer, football or baseball practice.
Right now, the closest turf space is Mercyhealth Sportscore in Loves Park.
Other unanswered questions from Visit Beloit’s consultant’s talk this week: who would pay for an ice arena revamp.
At Janesville’s Woodman’s Center, the costs are split multiple ways: The city of Janesville is paying part, federal and state grants are paying for another portion, and private investors are also fronting millions of dollars.
When the Woodman’s Center gets up and running, the city would own it, but its operations would be by a third-party sports management firm and subsidized by taxpayers.
It’s not yet clear what it would cost, but boosters of the Woodman’s Center say its costs to run would be offset by the facility having at least 20,000 square feet of convention space.
The current Edwards Ice Arena is owned and operated by the city, but it’s not clear whether an upgraded Edwards or a new ice arena would be owned or run by the city — or whether it might be paid for and run through one of several different types of public-private partnerships.
The city is simultaneously in the midst of studying whether to revamp Pohlman Field, former home of the then-Beloit Snappers minor league baseball team. That stadium is also in Telfer Park, and it’s looking at turf field developments to create more outdoor sports space.
Visit Beloit and the city have been looking at some options to upgrade athletic facilities in Beloit since 2022.
As of now, there is no ironclad plan by the city of Beloit to revamp Edwards Arena, and the group suggested it might require a public-private partnership.
Feldman says it could take a year-and-a-half to build out or rehab a new arena, but it could take longer than that before the community reached consensus on what sports amenities it wants — and how they’d be paid for.
