Update: City Council voted to approve the development plan on June 26th, 2008.

On March 26th, 2004, the city of Edgewater officially took possession of the property on the northeast corner of 20th Avenue at Depew Street. More than four years later, the city has finally announced a plan to develop the property.

This development came about primarily in response to citizen input which was received during several charrette-style meetings where the public was invited to dream in color about their desires for the property. The most common themes among the citizens included revenue generation, additional recreation, integration with existing parks, and most importantly, no housing and/or no high density housing.

The city leaders took this input and evaluated several ideas. The unfortunate theme amongst all the ideas evaluated was that all of them cost the city a lot of money - money the city doesn't have. In fact, since the city first purchased the property, the city's budget has been in the red more often than it has been in the black.

What the city really needed was an idea which accommodated both the city's need for increased revenue, and the citizens need for increased recreation. Finally, a little more than two years ago an idea was proposed which at first seemed out of the city's reach, but certainly had the potential to accommodate the most prominent citizen input

The city realized that a recreation center which had a large regional draw would provide both increased recreation and increased tax revenue due to the large number of additional visits to our city. The only catch was that the city did not have the funds to build such a large recreation center, and even if it did, most recreation centers rely on large yearly subsidies from the government to make ends meet.

Citizens and community leaders began searching for the holy grail of recreation, a recreational activity which pays for itself, and draws large numbers of affluent visitors to shop at our new Target store and our other local businesses. Ideas such as a pool, and indoor soccer were evaluated, but cost too much or brought in too few visitors. It was finally determined that the only reasonable course of action was to find a private developer to invest in the property and build the recreation center.

After years of research, study, public input, and discussion, the city has announced plans to sell the property to private developers who will build a recreation center at the site. The recreation center will be primarily an ice arena, with two NHL-size ice sheets. The plan also includes more traditional recreational opportunities including a weight/cardio room, an aerobics room, a community/meeting room, a free outdoor spray park, and other recreational amenities. The outdoor amenities will be integrated seamlessly with the existing park adjacent to Edgewater Elementary School.

Not only will the ice arena bring in significant revenues due to ice (and ice skate) rental taxes, and additional property taxes from the multi-million dollar development, it will bring in almost half a million visitors a year who will shop and eat in Edgewater, thus generating significant new tax revenue for the city. An economic study commissioned by the city determined that the ice arena may even have the potential to generate as much revenue as the new Target store.

Following on the success Edgewater has had attracting new business development along Sheridan, this project will help the city to solve some of most serious issues facing the city - issues which the city has not previously had enough money to solve.

The private developer, Ice Ranch, has released a preliminary brochure which illustrates what an asset this development will be to the city. The brochure is available at City Hall, or on the city's web site at www.edgewaterco.com. Several pictures from the brochure are included with this story.

If you have any questions about the development, feel free to call me (Councilman Gardner) at 303-257-9011.