Ice Skating Arena Closes; Synagogue to Buy Site

Owing $450,000 in rent and mired in financial trouble, the Irvine Ice Arena shut down Thursday evening as a synagogue prepared to complete its purchase of the property.

“There goes my office,” arena hockey director Mike Jones said as he carried his belongings from the red barn-like building into his car.

Workers carried out the soft drink machine, others packed up the sports shop. A slap shot away, 100 people spent their afternoon getting in a final skate, doing the old reliables, the hokeypokey, the chicken dance and the Macarena.

“This whole thing is like a death to me,” said Linda Coonan, who operated the rink with husband Steve.

University Synagogue, a Reconstructionist congregation that has outgrown the space it has rented from Irvine United Church of Christ for 10 years, expects to close escrow on the 38,000-square-foot building in a couple of weeks, temple President Art Lipton said.

Lipton has declined to say how much the synagogue is paying for the land, but the Coonans said the price for the site, owned by Irvine Recreation Park, was $6.4 million.

The closing of the arena means that young hockey players and figure skaters who regularly practiced there will have to find another rink. Other Orange County rinks already have seen their business increase as the final days of the Irvine arena looked increasingly inevitable.

Jones said 165 youths participated in his hockey teams and took instruction. About 900 children took figure skating lessons in the winter.

The rink’s operators and their supporters publicly opposed the sale of the site, using tactics that led to accusations of anti-Semitism.