The building opened to the public in September 1998. Since then, the building has helped develop the figure skating talents of several national, world and Olympic champion figure skaters; hockey players; and more. It is also a popular place for fundraisers, and it offers a place for the community to have fun. According to the rink manager, Jeff Mitchell, approximately 700,000 people come to the rink each year.
The Novi Ice Arena was originally funded with bond funds, but it is now operated through an enterprise fund. Enterprise funds are funds set up for government facilities or services where user fees are supposed to make the facility or service self-sustaining.
“One of the things that I really think that is important is that we formalize some of the relationships with the school district users. Currently they each have a locker room — kind of run down in my mind. But I think that if we’re going to continue with this, that we need to go beyond potentially the revenue generated by the ice arena and start looking at this as a city asset that might be of value from the capital improvement program and take it the next step,” Councilman Dave Staudt said.
Staudt said he agreed with Fischer that the facility should be world-class and said that right now it looks outdated.
He said they have a capital improvement program millage coming up and that would be where the revenue to improve the ice rink would come from.
“I support exactly what the mayor said and I support expansion beyond that. But I may come back with a change of mindset if this capital improvement program millage doesn’t pass in November, because we have a responsibility to look at all the potential sources of revenue if that doesn’t pass, because we’re going to be in a very difficult position,” Staudt said.
“I’m looking forward to moving forward and seeing what happens with this,” Councilman Brian Smith said.
The item was only a discussion; there was no vote on the topic.