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Shari Trotter

Center Ice to open in October

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The walls are up, the ice has been poured, and droves of hockey players soon will visit Pasco County.

A hard-hat tour of the 150,500-square-foot Florida Hospital Center Ice Complex revealed significant progress of the $20 million project, at 3173 Cypress Ridge Road in Wesley Chapel.

Ice was poured on the rinks just a few weeks ago. There will be four full-size rinks, and one mini-rink. (Kevin Weiss/Staff Photos)
Ice was poured on the rinks just a few weeks ago. There will be four full-size rinks, and one mini-rink.
(Kevin Weiss/Staff Photos)

A crowd of more than one hundred Pasco county business leaders and representatives toured the facility recently to learn about its features, and about available programs and sponsorship opportunities.

The facility is set to open “sometime in late October,” with a soft opening expected earlier, officials said.

Described as the largest ice sports facility in the southeastern United States, the building will house five ice rinks, a multipurpose sports floor, a 2,600-square-foot fitness facility and an indoor sprint tack.

There also will be a full-service family restaurant on the second floor and five party rooms totaling 17,000 square feet. Several corporate events have already been booked.

Florida Hospital also will have an office there, focusing specifically on enhancing sports performance and injury prevention.

“We’ve come a long way on this project (since) when we were looking at just an empty field,” said George Mitchell of Z Mitch, the facility’s developer. “It took a lot of imagination from the beginning.”

An indoor track is one of the more unique features at Florida Hospital Center Ice.
An indoor track is one of the more unique features at Florida Hospital Center Ice.

Officials believe the massive facility will attract 1.5 million to 2 million visitors annually, with 40 percent coming from outside Tampa Bay.

Former hockey pro Gordie Zimmermann, a Z Mitch partner, said the colossal edifice is creating a buzz as far north as Toronto and Montreal, two hockey-crazed cities.

“People up there are already talking about this building,” Zimmermann said. “We had some teams up there that are in the junior leagues that actually want to come down here and do training camps and tournaments here.

“It’s going to be great for our community to have the tournaments and programs — like the girls’ Olympic (hockey) team training, world-class figure skaters, USPHL (United States Professional Hockey League) teams here; we’re really looking at a top to bottom programming,” he added.

Zimmermann, who was an integral cog in developing the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon, visited approximately 500 ice rinks throughout North America to conceptualize the Wesley Chapel venue.

Area business leaders and representatives were on hand for a hard-hat tour. They learned about available programs and sponsorship opportunities.
Area business leaders and representatives were on hand for a hard-hat tour. They learned about available programs and sponsorship opportunities.

One of the complex’s features that is drawing quite a bit interest from hockey directors in Canada isn’t even ice-related — it’s the indoor sprint track.

Zimmermann said more hockey players and athletes are using sprint tracks for conditioning, but Canada’s bitter cold temperatures make it difficult to train outdoors year-round.

“A lot of those program directors up there were looking at our website, saying, ‘Wow, you’ve got an indoor sport track to train on.’ They thought that was really good; that’s an attraction for them,” Zimmermann said.

Zimmermann already has a hockey and skating department in place.

Kevin Wolter, who spent 30 years within the USA Hockey Coaching Education program, was named as the facility’s general manager. Shari Trotter, the figure skating director at the Ashburn Ice House in Washington D.C., was hired to serve as the facility’s executive figure skating director.

Moreover, two maintenance staff members will be coming aboard in June to begin managing the facility’s refrigeration program.

In total, 20 full-time and 30 part-time employees will be working at the facility, Zimmermann said.

The initial opening was set for October 2015, but it was delayed by the weather and issues with the installation of the refrigeration system.

Florida Hospital Center Ice
Facility overview
The 150,500-square-foot complex will be the largest ice sports facility in the southeastern United States. Here are some details:

  • One Olympic-size rink (200 feet by 100 feet)
  • Two North American standard-size rinks (200 feet by 85 feet)
  • One multipurpose sports floor/ice pad-multipurpose pad conversion
  • A 2,600-square-foot fitness facility
  • An indoor sprint track and conditioning area
  • An onsite athletic trainers and sports performance program
  • Five corporate/birthday party rooms
  • A family sport restaurant
  • Private and public locker rooms
  • A hockey skills training area
  • A revolving entrance door to control inside temperature environment

Florida Hospital Center Ice will have numerous programs and uses, including:

  • Local, regional, national and international hockey tournaments
  • University and high school teams’ practices and games
  • Recreational leagues
  • Hockey development programs
  • Roller and street hockey
  • Camps, clinics, multisport training
  • Figure skating
  • Public skating, birthday parties
  • Sled hockey
  • Indoor sports: box lacrosse, volleyball, basketball
  • Sports Performance Enhancement and Injury Prevention programs
  • Corporate events, public meetings

Published June 4, 2016

Hockey complex making progress

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After a few setbacks, the Florida Hospital Center Ice complex may open sometime before Labor Day.

Initially, the opening for the $20 million project, at 3173 Cypress Ridge Blvd., had been slated for last October.

However, weather and installation of the refrigeration system pushed back the timetable for the 150,000-square foot complex.

The construction of Florida Hospital Center Ice has undergone a few setbacks, due to weather and technological hurdles. Initially slated to open in October 2015, the target date for completion is now late summer of this year. (Courtesy of Florida Hospital Center Ice)
The construction of Florida Hospital Center Ice has undergone a few setbacks, due to weather and technological hurdles. Initially slated to open in October 2015, the target date for completion is now late summer of this year.
(Courtesy of Florida Hospital Center Ice)

Developer Gordie Zimmerman, of Z Mitch, said the facility’s opening is currently “at the mercy of the refrigeration company.”

“It’s not your average double-ice rink that you see in this area,” said Zimmerman, who helped develop the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon. “To build five rinks in one building under one system, it really is a technological challenge — like going to the moon.

“We have (the issue) resolved. We just don’t know exactly the timeframe.”

Once complete, the complex will have four full-size ice rinks, and a mini-rink for ice hockey and figure skating — making it the largest ice rink complex in the Southeast.

Additionally, the facility will be multipurpose for other sports like basketball, soccer, lacrosse and volleyball.

“We can do a lot of other different things that other facilities— whether they’re a single sheet or a double sheet— can’t do. We have the ability to do more programming at the same time,” Zimmerman explained

“This facility is going to open up a lot of avenues, not just for hockey, but for figure skating, street hockey and multiple sports,” he said.

Zimmerman isn’t quite sure yet what membership costs or membership totals will be, but he said “we’ll probably double the size of USA Hockey membership in the Bay Area once we come on line.”

The facility expects to staff “somewhere in the area” of 20 full-time and 30 part-time employees, Zimmerman said.

“We have taken in probably 100 resumes…from people of interest,” he said. “We’re really looking for ice maintenance (employees)…because of all the new technology.”

Zimmerman already has a hockey department staff in place, and recently hired Shari Trotter, the figure skating director at the Ashburn Ice House in Washington D.C., to serve as the executive figure skating director for Center Ice.

Pasco County tourism manager Ed Caum said the sprawling facility will increase tourism and have a “major economic impact” for the Tampa area.

He believes it will “create a buzz,” from Pasco County to Bradenton.

“People will start calling us the ‘Ice-75’ corridor. From all the way up here to the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon, there’s going to be a massive, massive need for time on the ice,” Caum said.

The tourism manager noted the facility will draw regional events, and perhaps, down the line, will attract national and international events, too.

“You can go after the USA Curling Championships. You can go after your artistic and dance-type events, and you can go after your big events like the NCAA Frozen Four.

“I know that (Zimmerman) does have a lot of friends up in Canada from when he played professionally, so I think we’ll see some international-type tournaments held in there, because people in the business know Gordie.”

While Caum doesn’t have a dollar figure on the amount of revenue Center Ice is expected to bring to Pasco County, he knows there’s already significant interest, because the county has five hotels in development.

“We don’t have the room stock that Hillsborough County does, so the economic impact is going to be shared with Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties, because it’s going to be a regional draw,” Caum explained. “We’ve got good partners, and everybody’s going to benefit from this. …Even if people come here to skate at the ice center, they may want to stay on the beach or they may want to stay in Channelside.

However the tourists come, he said, “everybody wins.”

Published February 24, 2016