Ed Snider gives $5.5 million to redo three city ice rinks

Spurred by a $5.5 million contribution from the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, three city ice rinks will be completely renovated and enclosed to make them operational year-round, officials said Wednesday.

Mayor Nutter, facing ongoing budget woes, has been partially successful in raising private money to help keep public swimming pools and ice rinks open.

The announcement Wednesday, however, established a new level of private involvement that not only keeps the doors open to city facilities, but also rebuilds them.

Nutter and Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, which owns the Flyers, called the expanded partnership "unprecedented."

The city will contribute about $1 million to the foundation's roughly $5.5 million, most of which is coming from Snider personally.

The combined $6.5 million will be matched by a grant from the state's Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program for a total project cost of $13 million.

Construction is expected to be completed by next November. Snider already has selected a general contractor, D'Lauro & Rodgers Inc.

The three public rinks are Scanlon at J and Tioga Streets in the Harrowgate section of Kensington, Simons at Walnut Lane and Woolston Avenue in West Oak Lane, and the Laura Sims Skate House at Cobbs Creek in West Philadelphia.

The announcement Wednesday was made at Scanlon Ice Rink.

The Snider Foundation also will make substantial improvements to the city's two other rinks: Rizzo at Front Street and Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia and Tarken at Frontenac and Levick Streets in Oxford Circle.

The foundation came to the city's rescue two years ago by taking over operations at three rinks that Nutter was threatening to close because of a budget shortfall.

"This is the kind of partnership we are looking to replicate in a number of ways," Nutter said then.

The city created the Splash & Summer FUNd to help keep open public swimming pools. In 2009, 27 pools were closed because of a lack of funding. This summer, all available pools were open because of an infusion a private funds from donors including First Niagara Financial Group, Coca-Cola, Rite Aid, and others.

At the city's five ice rinks, Snider Hockey offers skating lessons, public skating access, ice hockey instruction, and league play, and includes equipment, academic services, and after-school programs - all for free.

The cost to Snider Hockey is more than $1.5 million a year and rising, said Scott Tharp, the foundation's president.

It's a cost the foundation is willing to shoulder for the long term. Snider Hockey recently reached a 20-year deal with the city to extend the partnership through 2030.

The goal for the youths isn't just skating and hockey lessons, but improving academic achievement, Snider said. Participants must get passing grades to continue in the program, he said.

Virlen Reyes, 18, of Kensington, recently completed five years in the program and now attends West Chester University.

Reyes said she had never thought about going to college and hadn't known how to skate before joining Snider Hockey when she was 13.

"Because of this program," she said, "I am living my dream."