West St. Paul's aging ice arena could be replaced by a $12.9 million sports complex if some developers and hockey enthusiasts have their way.

While hundreds of kids are expected to hit the ice this weekend for tryouts for the city's youth program, city officials are whacking around ideas about what to do with the nearly 40-year-old ice rink that needs more than a million dollars worth of repairs and renovations.

City Council members recently heard the results of a feasibility study, and the most discussed option was a recommendation to build a $12.9 million sports arena near S. Robert Street and Wentworth Avenue, where the city's maintenance facility used to be. It would include a new ice rink and an 80,000 square-foot FieldTurf dome for sports such as soccer and baseball.

Many questions remain to be answered -- chief among them how it would be paid for -- and the idea is already being met with skepticism from some members of the council.

The city ordered the study in April with the goal of measuring the demand for an athletic arena, identifying the options and figuring out how to finance the construction. Last week, a packed meeting room listened as planning consultants fielded questions about the study from city officials.

Besides field rentals expected to generate $700,000 each year, a new sports arena near Robert Street would generate as much as $3 million worth of economic activity, analysts said.

"West St. Paul is a perfect environment," for such a facility, said Shannon Rusk of Oppidan Investment Co., a development company that was one of two the city hired for the study. She said demand for sports facilities in the area is high.

The current ice arena, at 60 W. Emerson Av, is open about eight months of the year and is the home arena for the West St. Paul Youth Athletic Association's hockey program and Henry Sibley High School's hockey teams.

Showing its age

The arena, which was built in the early '70s, needs about $1.5 million in repairs. The roof leaks and needs to be replaced. There isn't a lot of space for locker rooms, which also suffer from poor ventilation, causing the rooms to smell. The arena could use new ice-making equipment and an insulated concrete slab for year-round ice.

"It's just not big enough," said Dave Malay, who has been the ice arena manager for more than 30 years.

The high school teams would like to be able to leave their equipment in one of the four locker rooms, but there is not enough space, Malay said.

The locker rooms also become an issue for tournaments, said Joe Juliette, commissioner of the Sibley Area Youth Hockey Association, the hockey leg of the West St. Paul Youth Athletic Association.

"There's just not a lot of room in there to fit a whole team in there and all of their gear," Juliette said. "It becomes a little bit crowded and a safety issue: Hockey blades and feet and fingers on floors. There's just not a lot of room."

The association has about 400 players ranging in age from 4 to 18. They come from West St. Paul, Mendota Heights and surrounding communities, Juliette said. More than half of the players come from outside West St. Paul.

Juliette said he supports a new arena and a turf facility.

"Around the surrounding areas even outside West St. Paul there's a need for fields," he said. "That indoor facility would be used by many baseball teams within a 10-mile, 20-mile, 30-mile radius."

Other choices

Another option that was presented in the study was to make repairs on the existing arena and build a separate, 100,000-square-foot turf facility with some amenities at the Robert Street site; that would cost $8.25 million. A similar option would also renovate the locker rooms at the existing arena and build an additional area for dry-land training so players could practice stick handling without using the ice; that would cost $8.9 million.

Jeff Jochum of Mendota Heights, whose 10-year-old daughter plays hockey at the arena, said he supports the new arena and turf facility.

"It's our local rink and we'll play wherever the rink is. It's just the fact that there's so much work that needs to be done in this arena," he said. "It just doesn't seem to make sense to invest $2 million into an asset that's going to depreciate."

Surrounding communities have taken different approaches to handling ice arena demand and have had varied success.

A nonprofit tennis program is trying to raise money to convert Ramsey County's Biff Adams ice arena in St. Paul into a indoor tennis facility that can be used year-round.

But some large sports centers that include ice rinks and indoor dome fields, such as one in Woodbury, are doing well, Rusk said.

Rusk's company is helping Vadnais Heights build a complex with two ice rinks and a turf dome that is opening in November, she said.

Still, some city officials are wary of the financial risk.

"It's really tough when on two other Monday nights each month we sit and go over the budget and we talk about things like not mowing the grass in some parks and not plowing the streets as often ... Then we're putting this out here," said Council Member Aaron VanMoorlehem. "Maybe we'll make money on it. Maybe we won't."

Mayor John Zanmiller said he couldn't "in good conscience" support constructing a new facility without a public referendum.

The mayor said the current facility at least should be renovated.

Council Member Jim Englin, who has a son who plays hockey, said he believed the sports facility would be able to pay for itself if given the time.

"This is an opportunity for us to really generate some economic development along Robert Street and cleanup some areas there that could really use some attention," Englin said.

Nicole Norfleet • 952-707-9995