San Mateo Ice Rink Fights Forced Closure

The lease for Bridgepointe Ice Skating Rink is not being renewed by developers.

A large portion of the community in San Mateo wants the Bridgepointe Ice Skating Rink to stay open.

"We just want to make sure the master plan is upheld and city council understands what the community wants," according to Jeremy Verba, member of Save our Rink.

SPI Holdings, the current owner of the Bridgepointe Shopping Center, is not renewing the current lease with the rink operator who has been running the place for 14 years.

Developers have other plans for the space.

That plan has rattled this tight knit skating community which looks at the rink as a place where skating stars are born. Like Kristi Yamaguchi, for example.

"We’d like the rink to stay there, if that’s not possible we’d like an extension for the current operator so the community can work with investors,” Verba said.

To keep the rink open will take a lot of work from both sides.

SPI Holdings filed paperwork last summer, asking the city to amend the current master plan, which was signed in the mid 1990’s to allow the skating rink to be built there.

To change it to retail space means a lot of work for the developer and San Mateo’s mayor believes the city is caught in the middle.

The ice rink is scheduled to close June 1.

 

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