During Tuesday night’s Northfield City Council meeting, City Engineer and Director of Public Works Dave Bennett and City Administrator Ben Martig provided the Council with an update on the efforts to build a new municipal ice arena.
The current building is rundown and, to many people, no longer an adequate facility. Maintenance costs are high for the building and will continue to grow, as it requires a new roof, and the ice-making equipment will have to be replaced soon. Aurora Pharmaceutical has approached the city about buying the arena in order to facilitate the company’s growth, and the city would very much like to sell to Aurora for a number of reasons.
Martig said the conversation about building a new arena has gone on for quite some time. Longer, in fact, than the usefulness of the current building.
“It’s an $18 million project for a single sheet ice arena. It’s a little bit bigger footprint. There’s a little bit more parking. Our actual current arena doesn’t technically meet the standards for a standard ice rink size, which I didn’t know until recently. The city had looked at this a number of years ago. They probably could have got it for you know, 30% of the cost way back then. Unfortunately, time costs increased more over time.”
The funding process that Bennett outlined for a new arena includes $9 million in tax abatement, $3 million in private fund and land donations, and a $6 million contribution from the Northfield School District under the Lease Levy authority.
The plan as it is currently laid out would add 7% to the tax levy. That found very little support from the Council. Only Councilor Brad Ness said he would support it, while Mayor Pownell offered some half-hearted support. Councilor George Zuccolotto said he would have a hard time supporting the project under nearly any circumstance and suggested that the school district make a more substantial contribution. Councilor Jami Reister was very disappointed that the building is not being planned to be built on the grounds of the high school and could not support the project simply from an equity point of view. Councilor Jessica Peterson White said, bluntly, that a 7% impact on the levy made it impossible for her to support the project.
Martig said there are other options to bring the cost to the city down that are worth exploring. He said the City of Dundas would be approached to join in the project, and there are many options in the private sector as well.
“I’d say everything is on the table from naming rights to other types of corporate identification in the building. That’s certainly one of the options is to see if there is more money out there. Are there any passionate people with some financial capacity to be able to help and get this thing over the hump to maybe bring that private piece up?”
Despite the resistance from the council, Martig said the city will continue to refine the plan and look for more help, because the city simply cannot be without a working ice arena.
“The existing building is really at the end of its useful life. It’s in very poor condition, so there really isn’t a ‘Do nothing’ option. That’s why we continue to look at what to do because the alternative is if we can’t ultimately fix something, that means we don’t have ice anymore in town. We do have a strong local interest and strong hockey programs. So, we’re trying to find some solutions. It’s not easy, but we’re continuing to chip away.”
Martig said the Council will discuss the project further next month.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with City Administrator ben Martig can be heard here
Lighten Up Garage Sale in Laird Stadium this year
The Carleton College Lighten Up Garage Sale starts today and will run through Saturday. The event, which has gained quite a bit of notoriety over the years, features collected belongings that Carleton students could not take home with them for various reasons on sale at bargain prices for anyone to come and buy.
Erica Zweifel, the Assistant Director for Community Impact with Carleton’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement is the person in charge of the massive sale. She said in the last few weeks before school ends, pods are set up on the Carleton campus and students are encouraged to bring anything they have in their dorm rooms that they cannot or do not intend to take with them when they leave and deposit the items in the pods. Zweifel said the system has helped them dramatically speed up the collection process and saves her volunteers from having to scour dorm rooms.
The volunteers come from the organizations that benefit from the sale. The Lighten up garage sale is a fundraiser for The Northfield Union of Youth, the Special Olympics, Project Friendship, and Growing Up Healthy. People from all four organizations help to sort the more than 50,000 pounds of sellable goods for the sale. Zweifel said she couldn’t put this event together without them and is grateful for the ‘small army’ of people who show up every year to help.
The sale is being held in Laird Stadium this year. The sale is normally in Carleton’s West Gym, but because the basketball courts are being refinished, that venue was not available. Zweifel said the space underneath the stands of the football stadium is perfect for them, as they are easily able to lay out each category – shoes, clothes, bedding, sporting goods, electronics, kitchen & household, books, and small furniture (including miniature refrigerators) in a way that makes sense.
Zweifel said that not everything they collect will be put on sale. Carleton College gear that is collected was offered to alumni in a pop-up sale last weekend during the school’s class reunions, and she said, some things they just want to offer back to the students.
“In the fall, we pull out the Halloween costumes and have a pop-up sale on campus for students with the Halloween costumes. We do some fun things, because the students aren’t here when we have the sale and we’re trying to find more ways to engage them, because it is their stuff. So, we do pull out some specific things and save them for when they come back to campus.”
While the sale is immensely popular, not everything put on sale will be sold, and Zweifel said there is a plan for that as well.
“We have a ton of cleanup vendors, most of them local. The T-shirts, go to rags to local CSA’s and to the paint store. There are people that make rugs out of the items, the clothing. The quilters use the sheets and bedding to make quilts. There’s just there’s hardly anything left by the time that we’ve finished. But what doesn’t sell, we give back to the local community.”
The Garage Sale will run today from 7am-4pm, tomorrow from 8am-6pm, and on Saturday from 8am-2pm. Saturday will feature a bag sale where patrons will be able to fill an IKEA bag with as much as they can hold and pay a flat $15.
For more information, visit the Lighten Up page on the Carleton College website.
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
