City Approves Sports Facility at Ice Arena

The City Council approved the construction and lease of sports facility at the Long Beach Ice Arena, but not before a contentious debate over the proposal at last week’s meeting.  

By a vote of 3-2, the council authorized the city to enter a five-year lease with Building Fitness Performance, a Lido Beach-based company that proposes to build a strength and endurance training facility on the second floor at the arena.

Building Fitness Performance agrees to pay $12,000 yearly rent, plus 10 percent of gross sales with a minimum guarantee of $10,000 per year, and potential invest as much $325,000 to renovate the facility, according to Hank Levin, who co-owns the company with his father, Mitch. 

“It’s really going to make our hockey arena a destination point, not just for hockey players, but for all athletes that want to compete at a high level,” said City Manager Charles Theofan.

Hank Levin said that between the NY Apple Core junior league and travel hockey teams, all based at the city-owned arena, about 160 players would be locked into contracts to use the facility.

It will also include a batting cage for baseball and softball players, and memberships will be open for the public to use the facility from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Moreover, the city-run yoga and boot camp programs will continue at the new facility, and the Youth Center that uses the upstairs would be moved to a multipurpose room at the arena, Theofan said.

“Here’s an opportunity for the city to gain something, at no expense to the city,” said David Baram, the Levins’ attorney from Long Beach.

But Council member Mike Fagen voted against the proposal, offering two primary objections.

In addition to raising concerns about the relationship that Building Fitness Performance working with players in the youth hockey leagues based at the city-owned arena, Fagen questioned why the city wanted to go forward with such an important project as renovating the area with only one company submitting a bid for the project.

“Why, in fact if it’s so important, have we stopped at one submission?,” Fagen said. “There’s a number of professional hockey players who are training people on Long Island with years of experience … And we haven’t reached out to them to make this responsible to the citizens of Long Beach.”

Said City Council President Tom Sofield, “By denying them money, that’s a good way to protect the citizens?”

Fagan, who said the company did a good job at teaching his son to skate, campaigned on renovating the entire arena and neighboring Recreation Center two years ago, and said that the hockey companies he spoke with were only interested in such large-scale renovations.

Both Theofan and Sofield told Fagen that he never came to them with any proposals to redo the ice rink, but only that he proposed putting a restaurant there. Fagen called Theofan a liar for saying he never spoke to him about his large-scale renovation proposal.  

Fagen’s called for reaching out to larger companies with more experience working with other municipalities — since this was Building Fitness Performance’s first such bid — Theofan said he was impressed by the Levins’ proposal for a city where their family roots going back multiple generations. 

“Maybe these gentlemen, as life-long Long Beach residents, believe in this community in certain ways that other people who are looking to make a buck do not,” Theofan said.

Prompted by Rick Hoffman, president of the West End Neighbors Civic Association — who agreed with Theofan’s characterization of the project as a “win-win” for both the city and company — Theofan said that requests for proposals went out for “a minimum of a month,” it was advertised in the city’s official newspaper (The Tribune) and, like all its other RFPs and competitive bids, posted on the city’s website.

Resident James Hodge said that it is Fagen’s job as a councilman to have the city to get the most money out of the proposal.

“He didn’t say [the Levins] were going to do a bad job,” Hodge said. “He said they did a good job with his son. Did anyone else go hard on RFPs? You’re trying to get the most … bang for your buck.’

Council member Len Torres, who initially was concerned that the new facility would displace the existing Youth Center on the second floor, sided with Fagen in voting against the resolution.