Arena-Area Businesses Cheering Already : Commerce: Nearby restaurants, hotels and especially a soon-to-open skating rink all expect to profit from hockey fans.
It was only a few years ago that the area around the intersection of State College Boulevard and Katella Avenue was being called “The Platinum Triangle.”
Office buildings and the Anaheim Sports Arena were going up near Anaheim Stadium and the future looked bright for the restaurants, motels and other small businesses that dot the area.
Then the recession hit. Office construction halted, it appeared that the arena would be without a major league sports tenant and the triangle began to feel some psychological tarnish.
But the Walt Disney Co.’s announcement that it intends to bring a National Hockey League team to the arena as early as next year has returned a sense of excitement to local entrepreneurs. Having the team will especially help during the winter doldrums of January, February and March when only a handful of significant events occur at Anaheim Stadium.
The new team will “have a significant impact on my business,” said an enthusiastic Ben Harris, general manager of the Angel Inn, a 71-room motel at the intersection. “The team is going to bring 17,000 people to the area 40 nights a year. Maybe a couple hundred a night aren’t going to want to fight the traffic or they’ve had too many cocktails and they are going to want to have a place to stay.
“This team is going to put money in my pocket,” Harris said.
Disney, owner of the Disneyland Hotel and several small motels nearby, will itself benefit from having a hockey team so close to the Magic Kingdom. Besides drawing tourists, the players may use the Disneyland Hotel as team “headquarters” during the season.
Esmael Adibi, director of Chapman University’s Economic Research Center, estimates that the hockey team will bring an extra $65 million annually into the area.
“Money will be spent in local restaurants, souvenirs will be purchased, jobs will be created at the arena and elsewhere and these workers will, in turn, spend their money to buy other goods and services in the area,” said Adibi, basing his projection on figures the city provided.
Errol Foremaster said he thinks the team will help give his soon-to-open Glacial Garden Ice Arena a fast start. With his facility located just half a mile from the arena, he envisions the hockey team and its opponents practicing there, giving it an instant “public relations and promotional boost.”
“People will come around to watch the teams practice and then--from the aroma of it all--they’ll start asking about skating and hockey leagues,” Foremaster said. His facility, with an NHL-size rink, is due to open by February.
