As construction on the rink draws nearer to completion, town officials are making headway on ways to ensure the operation of the municipal rink remains revenue-neutral.
“We have been planning for the operation and opening of the rink for some time,” Town Administrator Patrice Garvin told Town Meeting members last week. “The goal has always been to operate the rink at an operational break-even, meaning revenues that come in will be used to offset any expenses we incur. The approach to how we plan to do this is threefold.”
The first step was hiring a rink manager, she said. Erik Harrington started last month and will work with Garvin to hire staff, rent out the ice time, and develop policies and procedures for running the rink. The next step, she said, is to ensure maximum revenue potential by locking in market rates for ice time and securing long-term tenants, presently including Belmont High School (at no charge), Belmont Hill School, Belmont Youth Hockey, Belmont Recreation and Belmont Hill School.
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And the final step, according to Garvin, is to follow through on promises to install solar.
“Solar is the key to minimizing costs for the operations of the rink,” she said last week. “I’ve been able to identify nearly $1 million in community contributions to fund the solar array on the Belmont rink.”
On April 4, 2023, voters approved a $29.9 million debt exclusion to build the ice rink to replace the old rink, which had become unusable. Last winter, renewed estimates revealed that the cost of the building as designed was closer to $35 million. In June 2024, after the Municipal Rink Building Committee pared down design plans to bring the cost closer to $32 million, Town Meeting members appropriated an additional $1.5 million to cover the budget shortfall. Additionally, state Sen. William Brownsberger secured a $750,000 state grant to install a carbon dioxide refrigeration system.
Those donations include $500,000 from Belmont Hill School, $200,000 from Belmont Day School—half to be spent this fiscal year (before June 30) and the other half next fiscal year—and $250,000 from Belmont Light. Each donation will come with its own memorandum of understanding between the town and the organization.
At their meeting Monday night, Select Board members agreed in principle with the agreements presented by Garvin. With final details still to be arranged between Belmont Hill and the town, Garvin said she’d return to the board to have the agreements signed.
“I do not anticipate any issues,” she said.
In the case of Belmont Hill, its hockey program will rent the ice from 2 to 3 p.m., three times per week, at market rate, whatever that is determined to be. This agreement offers them an additional 30 minutes of ice time.
The school’s $500,000 donation will, in part, be a donation to the solar panels and a pre-payment for two seasons of ice time, meaning that the rental for those initial two seasons will be waived. The plan is also to work out a 20-year tenant agreement between the two parties.
The $200,000 donation from Belmont Day, meanwhile, will go toward the construction for the solar array. In exchange, the school is asking for data from the panels for educational purposes.
Finally, Belmont Light is offering a $250,000 donation in exchange for Belmont’s agreement to sell “green” renewable energy credits to the town’s municipal light department.
Garvin said the inclusion of solar as part of the rink construction not only ensures the building will break even operationally, but makes good on commitments that town made to voters.
Naming Policy
In other business Monday night, Select Board members reviewed a draft version of a policy for naming capital assets in town.
Select Board Chair Elizabeth Dionne, who drafted the policy in light of conversations around what to name the building upon completion, said in coming up with her own draft policy, she reviewed the policies of other communities, namely Wellesley and Concord.
“Some of the overarching concepts are that names should not be permanent,” she said. “In particular, the element I took from Concord … was that names are not supposed to be part of the permanent design element of the building.”
Instead, names should be on a plaque or a monument.
The draft policy also presumes a 20-year sunset on names. In other words, at the end of 20 years, the name is revisited and the town decides whether to continue it, adopt a new name. or revert to the town’s name.
From Wellesley, she included the concept for a public hearing process on a proposed name, followed by a waiting period for the town to process arguments and provide feedback.
And finally, she said, the draft policy includes a statement of principle that names are supposed to build community rather than create division.
The inclusion of some means exclusion of others,” she said, making an argument for major capital assets being named after the town and its residents.
Gail Harrington, daughter of Skip Viglirolo, the prior rink was named for, spoke in favor of the rink retaining her father’s name.
“Building a new structure should not erase a legacy, but build upon it,” she said.
The board will continue to offer feedback on the draft policy before considering a final one for approval.