- February 18, 2026
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On the heels of the Lakewood Ranch High School boys hockey team winning the Lightning Cup Feb. 6, Manatee County took its first step toward a public-private partnership to build an ice rink in Lakewood Ranch at Premier Sports Campus North.
LWRHS hockey coach Peter Sibner said hockey is growing in the Tampa Bay area, but there aren’t enough rinks to support the sport’s growth.
Although Manatee County commissioners unanimously approved the execution of a public-private economic stimulus development agreement, the project is not a done deal yet.
Elliott Falcione, the director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau for Manatee County, called the agreement with Icemann Development Manatee LLC a “placeholder for a parcel of land on the east side of the Lakewood Ranch Library for an indoor sports venue.”
Several more steps must be taken before a deal is finalized.
Wesley Chapel-based Icemann will have to develop a conceptual site plan to determine how many acres the venue will require and enter into a land lease agreement with Manatee County. Until a lease agreement is signed, neither party is legally bound to follow through with the project.
The basics of the partnership is that the county will provide the land through a 60-year lease with an option to extend for another 30 years, and Icemann will build the estimated $50 million, 70,000- to 90,000-square-foot “indoor multipurpose sports venue.”
Falcione said flooring could cover the ice rink to allow for sporting and community events in addition to ice hockey, figure skating and curling.
Additionally, the county would invest $10 million into a parking lot that could also serve the library and the future Athletics and Aquatics Center scheduled to open this fall. Falcione stressed that revenue from the tourist tax would cover the expense, not ad valorem taxes paid by Manatee County residents.
Everything else — design, construction, management and operations — would be left to Icemann. The company has been in business for over 30 years and has a portfolio of over 500 projects, ranging from residential developments to sports facilities.
Commission Chair Tal Siddique noted that East County is becoming known for youth sports.
“Whether people want more ball fields or ice skating rinks, different recreational opportunities are things we should be investing in,” he said. “Not using our own dollars is an added bonus. Look at what the city of Sarasota is doing with Bobby Jones — $18 million to put into their own golf course. That wouldn’t fly here.”
Commissioner Bob McCann voted to approve the agreement, but he has reservations about the financial viability of an ice rink.
“We have some failed ice rinks in this area,” he said. “We don’t want to put a lot of money into something that’s going to fail again, so if it has more purposes than just the ice rink, I’m for it.”
Siddique and Commissioner George Kruse argued that there’s only one other ice rink in the county — the Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex —and it’s “doing fine.”
However, there was another ice rink slated for Lakewood Ranch in the early 2000s — the DVA Arena. Construction began in 2005 on a $70 million, 220,000-square-foot, 7,400-seat sports and entertainment arena on the northwest corner of White Eagle Boulevard and Rangeland Parkway.
By 2009, the property was in foreclosure. Schroeder-Manatee Ranch purchased the property back from DVA Sports at auction and soon after demolished the unfinished construction.
But McCann was not referring to the DVA Arena, as he explained his comment to the East County Observer following the meeting. He was referring to the Ellenton complex, and he wasn't entirely “factually incorrect” as Kruse stated.
McCann pointed to the last sale price of the Ellenton complex being nearly half of its original list price. The sale price was just over $7 million in 2016, but the asking price was $12.5 million in 2015.
The first sale of the venue was worse. The complex cost nearly $16 million to build in 1999 and was sold for about $5 million in 2005.
McCann noted the difficulty in maintaining an ice rink in Florida because the heat and humidity can cause soft, uneven and bumpy ice from condensation.
“You have a couple places that are successful, but there are a lot of failures in this arena,” he said. “Ellenton functions, but not without problems and a high cost.”
Several online reviews of the Ellenton complex back up McCann's assertion that the ice is often “slushy.”
Sibner said the facility needs work because it’s nearly 30 years old, and there’s no “proper restaurant” on-site. In his opinion, it doesn’t represent the area as well as a newer facility could.
He used the ice rink in Wesley Chapel, AdventHealth Center Ice, as an example of a newer and nicer facility. That center was built by Icemann Development in 2017.
The company’s website describes the complex: “Spanning over 150,000 square feet, the center features three NHL-sized ice pads, one Olympic-sized pad, and a mini rink, making it the largest ice sports complex in the Southeast.”
The facility being contemplated for Premier would contain three to four ice sheets. An ice sheet is the surface within a rink. An NHL regulation size ice sheet is 85 feet wide and 200 feet long.
Outside of age, Sibner said the load on Ellenton warrants another rink in Manatee County.
He called it "sad" that the lack of rinks causes hockey to be a more expensive sport in Florida than in other places. To rent a rink for one hour in Florida costs him $450. But when he rented a rink for a tournament in Quebec, Canada, an hour only cost $250.
“I’m originally from Sweden, where we have 370 ice rinks for a population of 10 million,” Sibner said. “I think all over Florida for a population of 22 million, you may have 20 rinks, so it’s an extremely underserved area for the ice that’s available.”
The 2025 U.S. Census has Florida’s population at over 23 million, and different hockey websites show between 17 and 21 rinks in the state. USA Hockey reported in December 2025 that there are eight ice rinks in South Florida that have hosted youth and adult hockey leagues.
The lack of rinks also causes long drives and late nights for some players. Teams from Sarasota practice in Ellenton, and the 18U team Sibner coaches (ages 15, 16 and 17) doesn’t finish practice until 10:15 p.m. because 9:15 p.m. was the only slot available.
Outside of McCann, the only other criticism of the possible venue came from Commissioner Carol Felts, but it had nothing to do with the rink itself.
“I wish we were getting this in my district,” she said. “The only thing, as usual, is our traffic and our roadways like Lorraine Road. If we’re going to do this, we’ve really got to start looking at our traffic issues in that area. Other than that, I think it’s a good endeavor."
