Township to buy Ocean Ice Palace for $5M
Building, 13.3-acre site to be used as new community center
BY PATRICIA A. MILLER
Staff Writer

PATRICIA A. MILLER staff Brick Township Council President Stephen C. Acropolis discusses plans for the new community center to be located at the Ocean Ice Palace on Chambers Bridge Road. The township will buy the ice rink and 13.3 acres of land within the next 70 days.

The rink at the Ocean Ice Palace was empty at 10 a.m. one recent morning. A faint mist hovered over the surface of the ice. The only sound in the building was the hum of the condensers to keep it frozen.

It's a scene Brick Township Council President Stephen C. Acropolis wants to change. He wants the rink to get as much use in the summer as in the winter. And Acropolis is a happy man these days.

After months of closed-door negotiations with owner Joan Dwulet, the Township Council is poised to purchase the Brick landmark on Chambers Bridge Road for $5 million. The 13.34-acre site includes a separate building used as a dormitory for visiting teams, offices, a 25-yard pool in the back, and pristine fields and woods.

"If we do not buy this from Joan, she is not going to wait and we are going to lose the opportunity of a lifetime," Acropolis said. "If we don't move on this now, it's going to be sold to a developer. This is something that will be running in the black, not costing money to run."

The plan is to use the site for a long-awaited community center, where recreation and senior services will be consolidated in one place. The township currently pays $45,000 a year to rent the Veterans of Foreign Wars building on Adamston Road for senior programs.

The township recreation offices are currently located across the street from the rink, in the civic center that Brick purchased back in 2000 for $1.2 million.

The civic center property, which has been appraised at $2.8 million to $3 million, will be sold and the proceeds put toward the Dwulet property purchase. The recreation offices would be moved into the Ice Palace building, he said.

"We tripled our money," he said of the civic center. "It was a great investment for the town. It works financially. We will be able to save money on maintenance costs, take the recreation offices and move them into offices that already exist. For the longer term, we want to get the citizens involved in telling us what they want on that site."

The township has already received calls from buyers interested in the civic center site, Acropolis said.

"It's a retail strip mall, centrally located," he said. "They really aren't making any of those anymore."

The ice rink will be the primary source of revenue generated from the purchase, he said.

"This is the money-maker part of the rec center," he said, as he gazed at the ice rink he played on in high school.

The Brick Hockey Club pays roughly $300,000 a year in rink time fees. The Brick Township school district pays $50,000.

"This is not about hockey," Acropolis said emphatically. "It's about sharing and consolidating services. It's all about the money."

The township would expand ice rink programs into the summer season, to make better use of the resource and generate more revenue. Right now, a few organizations use the rink at night in the summer and Dwulet runs a two-week hockey camp. Otherwise, the rink is unused in the summer, Acropolis said.

Dwulet's father, the late Leon Dwulet, a well-known area physician, built the rink back in the 1960s.

Township officials had been talking to Joan Dwulet about buying the property "for years," Acropolis said.

"It's a perfect spot," he said. "She was never a willing seller. The township and the council have never been into taking land for any reason. We're not going to go any other route other than a friendly negotiation."

The Ocean Ice Palace is structurally sound. But the roof needs repairs and the indoors needs some cosmetic work. The ice rink was redone about 15 years ago, which is not a problem, Acropolis said.

"These rinks last between 30 to 40 years," he said.

The actual cost of the building has been discounted 85 percent, Acropolis said.

"We are buying the land and an operating business," he said.

The property was appraised at $5 million. It includes the adjacent land the Bally fitness center is on.

"There's a possibility of getting income from them," Acropolis said. "A long-term lease, maybe giving residents a break on membership fees."

The building has several ground-floor entrances, which makes it ADA compliant already, Acropolis said.

Both the pro shop and the snack bar could be leased out as another revenue producer.

The dormitory could be retrofitted to make it a senior center.

"The great thing is it works financially," Acropolis said. '"Right now the township is stretching its resources and its money to do different programs."

"We will be generating revenue from that place of about $400,000, and that doesn't include renting the pool out," he said. "We hope to be able to have this pool up and running so our schools can use it. Maybe we could put a small bubble over it. We are looking longtime to be able to use an indoor pool for therapy."

Rep. Chris Smith has already told township officials he would also see about getting some funding for the purchase, Acropolis said.

By purchasing the Ocean Ice Palace site, the township could link the site to Route 70 via a bypass road behind the property that would connect the property to the Foodtown site.

The bypass route, which would be constructed on an existing Ocean County Utilities Authority easement, would alleviate traffic congestion on Route 70 by providing access to Chambers Bridge Road, Acropolis said.

"We put in that bypass road to connect them all; you are almost looking at Brick Township getting a main street," he said.

Opportunities like the Ocean Ice Palace site don't come along often, Acropolis said.

"If you don't grab them, you lose them forever," he said. "This acquisition makes a tremendous amount of sense. Where can you buy a 13-acre piece of property for $2 million? You can't."