Mason City council approves new arena lease with Youth Hockey

MASON CITY — The City Council in Mason City last night approved a one-year lease agreement with Mason City Youth Hockey for the city’s multipurpose arena.

The two sides originally had a five-year lease that was executed in 2019, which included many unknown challenges of the structure of the original contract, with both the city and Mason City Youth Hockey meeting for several years in an attempt to find a better agreement that meets the needs of both sides. One of the biggest concerns by the city was finding ways to reduce costs to bring the budget into balance for the finances of the facility.

City Administrator Aaron Burnett says cleaning will be the responsibility of Youth Hockey rather than the city, in turn helping reduce some of the costs.  “There’s a large cost associated with that cleaning. So that was then billed through, and it was creating a large cost both for the city and for Youth Hockey. In the negotiations in trying to find a way to help reduce some of the deficit that exists, that was one of the proposals that was put forward. I think it will be a big undertaking that we’ll continue to work to make sure that’s taken care of, but that should reduce a big cost for both entities.”

Burnett says they only wanted to go with a one-year lease to make sure changes in the lease terms are good for the long-term.  “It’s making sure that whatever lease we have in place is really working for both entities, so that’s why you see a one-year lease in front of you. We’ve had this communication about the lease for many years knowing that we were running a deficit and understanding that we needed to cut that deficit down from the ice sports operations during that time period.”

The payment to the city from Youth Hockey will increase to $119,189 over an eight month period that the ice is in.