City closes ice rink due to weather, costs, declining usage

GROSSE POINTE CITY — This winter, Grosse Pointe City ice skaters and hockey players will need to find a new rink.

Because of the cost of maintenance and manpower, combined with the fact that it hasn’t been usable much in recent years due to warmer winters, City officials decided it was time to close the Neff Park ice rink.

Parks and Recreation Coordinator Rebecca Jenzen told the Grosse Pointe City Council that residents in the summer of 2024 voiced concerns about the viability of the rink and the costs to operate it and fix it.

Mayor Sheila Tomkowiak concurred, saying that the number of residents who thought the rink should be closed was “fairly significant.”

“We were getting to the point where the maintenance costs were getting very high because we have to replace many (parts),” Jenzen said during a Dec. 16 council meeting.

Jenzen said a single warm, rainy day — even in the middle of a cold snap — is enough to render the rink unusable.

“We don’t just lose one day when it’s warm and rainy — we lose multiple days,” Jenzen said.

Between 2016 and 2024, the rink has only been open from a high of 55 days — during the 2018 to 2019 season — to a low of eight days in 2023, when the rink was only open in February due to weather conditions.

“We discussed the limited time the rink is open,” said City Councilman Dave Fries, the council liaison to the Parks and Harbor Commission.

Because of warmer winters, the city hasn’t been able to open the rink as early as it once could. Since 2016, the rink was only open in December in 2017 — when it opened Dec. 28 — and 2018 — when it opened Dec. 26.

“It’s staggering how much (rink usage) has dropped off in the last couple of years,” City Councilman Christopher Moyer said.

Although Neff Park had a refrigerated ice rink, outdoor temperatures still need to be low to keep the ice solid. Jenzen said park staffers needed to do “extensive maintenance” to keep the rink running, including adding layers of water and packing the rink’s corners and edges with ice and snow to stop leakage and enable new ice formation. Workers also had to shave the ice when air bubbles or pitting happened.

City officials said not opening the rink would save the community $16,000 in repairs to the ice rink chiller and another $3,700 in salaries for the seasonal workers who take care of the rink.

“The (Parks and Harbor) Commission felt $16,000 to bring it up to (operational condition) was exorbitant,” Tomkowiak said.

In addition, there are separate costs associated with having an electrical team properly connect and disconnect the rink each season, as well as an inspection to make sure everything is working correctly.

The council voted unanimously in favor of the Parks and Harbor Commission’s recommendation to close the rink. Jenzen said city employees could look at possibly selling equipment related to the ice rink.

That’s not to say the City can’t decide to put in a new ice rink in the future, should residents want one.

“Certainly you could revisit this in the future,” City Manager Joseph Valentine said.

Some residents have expressed an interest in having sand volleyball at Neff Park. Tomkowiak said they couldn’t set up a volleyball court where the rink is located because the rink couldn’t be placed atop sand, but with closure of the rink, the city could possibly create a sand volleyball court in that location.