Seacoast-area indoor sports arena: Two companies respond to Portsmouth's inquiry

PORTSMOUTH — Companies from Massachusetts and Florida are interested in partnering with the city to develop a new Seacoast-area indoor sports arena featuring a hockey rink.

Edge Sports Group out of Wellesley, Massachusetts, and The Sports Facilities Companies, whose corporate headquarters are located in Clearwater, Florida, responded to the city’s request for qualifications/statement of interest to partner on the potential development of an indoor sports complex.

“As one of the country’s largest developers and operators of forward-looking Public/Private recreational ecosystems, with a vast history within this concept in Portsmouth and the Seacoast area, Edge is well suited to work with the city of Portsmouth and the Seacoast in this endeavor,” Edge Sports Group president Brian DeVellis said in the company’s submission to the city.

“I have had the pleasure to design, permit and develop recreational facilities running the gamut from Arnold Palmer’s Golf Club of New England in Stratham to the award-winning athletic ecosystem The Boston Sports Institute in Wellesley,” he went on to say. “Over the past 15 plus years, Edge has successfully conducted studies, developments, master planning, design, finance, permitting, providing construction oversight, fit-up, refurbished/upgraded, and/or operated 30+ facilities nationwide.”

Edge has completed nine public-private partnerships in the past 12 years from study to development through operations, he said.

“Along with Edge’s development work, we have recently completed the acquisition of seven additional athletic properties in Q1 of 2022 and Q2 of 2023 and now own/manage the properties, along with the five youth hockey programs that call the facilities home,” DeVellis said.

Edge: 'No cost to taxpayers to date'

Typically, Edge Sports Group pays for all the cost of constructing a new facility on land that is given to them by the city or other group they’re working with, according to the company.

They then manage the facility and pay for its upkeep; they have told city officials previously.

In its more than 20-page submission to the city, the company states that “at Edge’s core is Public/Private Partnership (P3's) development, financing, and partnership sustainability.

“Having developed many of the latest privately financed P3s nationwide, our team strives to deliver communities the recreation asset and use they desire at no cost to the taxpayer to date,” Edge Sports said.

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Sports Facilities Companies makes its pitch

Sports Facilities Companies (SFC) states in its response that it “has established the industry’s premier planning, funding, development, and operational network.”

Evan Eleff, the company’s partner, stated that “our team has more than 2,000 professionals across the country, all working toward our mission of improving the health and economic vitality of the communities we serve through sports, recreation, and wellness.”

“Since SFC was founded in 2003, we have served more than 3,500 communities across the United States and internationally, led the strategic planning of more than $15 billion of sports and recreation assets, and provided management services for hundreds of facilities around the world,” Eleff added.

Like Edge Sports Group, SFC touts its success in managing sports and recreation facilities with its municipal partners.

“We are the ultimate partner for clients who want to maintain control of their assets without the headaches, expense and risk of daily operations,” SFC said in its submission to Portsmouth.

The company’s submission does not directly state whether it would build the proposed indoor sports facility or pay for its construction.

Reached Friday, Eleff described his company’s submission as just a “high-level conversation of interest at this point.”

He acknowledged “there’s no specific proposal” in his company’s response in terms of building the indoor sports arena.

“It’s effectively a statement of qualifications,” he said.

The company does state in its response that its planning division, the Sports Facilities Advisory, “is the leading authority in the planning of youth and amateur sports destinations, event centers, parks and recreation facilities, and mixed-use developments in the country.”

“Our team has direct and deep experience planning, funding, developing, and operating facilities and programs that have resulted in the community impacts the city is targeting,” the company states in its submissions.

“Throughout the master planning process, our goal is to provide the strategies and steps necessary to put the project on the most likely path forward and to develop the foundation of a long-term, sustainable, and impactful facilities and park systems,” they said.

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Portsmouth searching for partners

The city issued its request for qualification (RFQ) in early June “to identify firms that may be interested in partnering with the city of Portsmouth to construct and operate a multisport complex as well as for the city to understand better the parameters under which such a partnership could proceed and succeed.”

“Consequently, this is only the first step in a multi-step process to investigate the opportunities that might exist to locate and develop a multisport complex for Portsmouth and the surrounding communities,” the posting states. “Part of the current challenge is a lack of a robust understanding of the developable land size need requirements, potential traffic impacts, and further details on the types of partnership opportunities that may be available.”

Ice rinks and a field house?

In its response to the city, Edge Sports Group pointed to the city’s recently completed Recreation Needs Study.

The study, as Edge Sports Group noted, “resulted in a strong desire and recommendation for an Indoor Recreation Center, including Ice Rinks and Field House (Turf/Court).”

The company “has also conducted internal market research which supports these findings even further.”

“If selected, Edge and the city of Portsmouth will develop an athletic ecosystem design and programing makeup that not only accounts for the core indoor athletic desires of the community but also ancillary uses within the venue,” the company states. “Building design and makeup may ultimately be dictated by the available land.”

A chart included in Edge Sports’ presentation lists a series of different sports facilities, along with their estimated size and programming needs that it would fill.

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Edge offers range of options

They include a facility featuring an ice rink only that would be an estimated 45,000 square feet and offer hockey, figure skating and small events.

Another option features an ice rink and field house that would be 120,000 square feet and offer hockey, figure skating, court sports, turf sports, a walking track and large events, according to the company’s submission.

In terms of finding a location for the potential indoor sports complex, Edge Sports Group called the land selection “a very collaborative process between all parties involved, and typically occurs after the 'Right Size' building and parking requirements are determined by the City and Development team.”

“Multiple locations shown in the RFQ document fulfill the estimated size need. Various unlisted locations such as Community Campus and Pease area are also options to assess further with the City,” company officials said.

The company’s “typical property footprint for a twin sheet (ice) facility plus parking is around five acres; twin sheets plus a field house range from six to nine acres pending parking requirements which are dictated by building size and programming,” Edge Sports Group said.

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City manager to propose site committee

The topic of the potential public/private partnership is slated to come up at Monday’s City Council meeting.

City Manager Karen Conard reported, “city staff has determined that both firms are qualified to proceed and has preliminarily ranked the two firms (that ranking is not public information at this time).”

“City staff is in the process of requesting additional information from each firm and may interview each firm to better understand the experience of the firm, potential approaches and opportunities, which may result in re-ranking,” Conard said in a memo to the City Council. “The city does not intend to select a single firm at this early stage in the procurement process.”

But Conard is expected to ask the City Council to vote to give her the authority “to work with the School Superintendent to establish an SAU 52 Site Investigation Committee relative to the potential development of an indoor multisport complex,” according to her memo.

“As the city staff continues its investigation to assemble information for a work session with the City Council and Recreation Board this fall, I recommend that an SAU 52 Site Investigation Committee be established,” the city manager said. “The SAU communities of Greenland, Newington, New Castle and Rye may have properties to serve as a potential site.”

Portsmouth is also in the SAU.

Right To Know request

Seacoast Media Group, which publishes Seacoastonline and the Portsmouth Herald, filed a Right to Know request to get the two responses to the city’s posting when they initially refused to release them in late June, saying they were confidential.

Deputy City Manager Suzanne Woodland denied the Right to Know request earlier this week.

But the documents were included in this week’s City Council packet, after Mayor Deaglan McEachern pledged to share them publicly by July 7.

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This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: 2 firms make pitch to develop Portsmouth, NH-area indoor sports arena