Owners want ice arena near park

A Des Moines businessman who owns a hockey franchise in that city is working with the owner of the Sarpy County land where the Omaha Royals plan to build a baseball stadium.

Shawn Edwards, managing partner for the Des Moines Buccaneers, a USHL franchise, said Friday that he is working with Roger Langpaul to build a 4,500-seat ice arena next to the future minor league baseball stadium.

Edwards said, however, that he has no plans to move his franchise — or any other minor league hockey franchise — into the Sarpy County ice arena.

The Des Moines businessman said he wants to make the ice-arena project a reality because the greater Omaha area does not have enough indoor ice space to accommodate existing youth amateur hockey teams and programs. Therefore, he said, it makes the most economic sense to build in Sarpy County, where most of the area's population growth is occurring.

“Obviously, that is an incredible location for youth and amateur hockey,” Edwards said. “It's a goal. Is it going to happen overnight? No. Roger Langpaul just got awarded (the stadium) contract on June 1, so now the real work starts.”

On June 1, the Sarpy County Board voted 3-2 to select Langpaul's family's property near Nebraska Highway 370 and 126th Street as the future site of the baseball stadium. Officials hope that the ballpark will spur creation of an entertainment district with bars, restaurants and a shopping center, an indoor water park and hotels, new offices and housing, a fitness center and the ice arena.

In April, during the site-selection process, Langpaul sent a letter to Sarpy County officials, outlining his overall development plans for the entire 310-acre parcel. In the letter, he noted that he had a letter of intent from “an investor/owner/operator of a USHL team for this facility.”

That led local hockey enthusiasts to wonder whether the Omaha Lancers, which play in the USHL, were working behind the scenes to move their team to the Sarpy site. After all, team officials had just announced in February that they were moving to the Omaha Civic Auditorium from Council Bluffs' Mid-America Center, their home for the past seven years.

The USHL office also started getting questions about what was happening.

“The Langpaul letter did note that a potential participating developer or operator was an investor, owner, and operator of a USHL franchise,” USHL Commissioner Skip Prince said. “Though I assume it was unintentional, it's easy to see how it might give rise to the question as to whether the USHL — and more specifically, the Omaha Lancers — were directly involved in the proposal or the development.”

Lancers officials knew they had no designs on the Sarpy site. But they, too, wanted answers. The team feared the league wanted to put an expansion team there or move an existing team into their backyard.

Lancers owner Ben Robert contacted Prince, who told him that Edwards, the Des Moines team's owner, indeed was helping to develop the Sarpy ice arena. But there were no plans, he said, to bring a minor league franchise there. Prince said the Lancers own territorial rights in the Omaha marketplace and that no other USHL team would have the right to operate in the market.

Edwards said that attracting a minor league hockey team to the Sarpy County venue is not critical to his project's success.

“This ice arena, it's not based on a team,” he said. “It's based on a foundation — that's youth hockey, figure skating, public skating, high school hockey teams.”

Edwards said he envisions the facility serving as a year-round live concert venue that, with floor-level seating, could hold roughly 6,000 spectators.

He said the 4,500-seat facility also could host graduation ceremonies, circuses and mixed-martial arts tournaments, among its many other possible uses. “The rest of the stuff pays all the bills,” he said. “It is not based on any one team, because if that team folded, then the arena folds.”

Edwards acknowledged that he initially hoped to attract the Lancers to the Sarpy arena. As he began working on the project, he said, he knew the Lancers wanted out of the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, where the team's attendance ranked among the lowest in the league.

But preliminary discussions with the Lancers never progressed into serious negotiations, he said. The Lancers eventually signed three, one-year annual lease agreements to use the Civic starting this fall.

Robert, the Lancers owner, said that he has no plans to break the lease agreement. He said he does not want to even consider looking elsewhere, including Sarpy County, even if that facility is eventually built.

“The Civic is the perfect venue for us,” Robert said. “There is a strong sense of excitement in Omaha that we are coming back home. I have no clue what their plans are (in Sarpy County). I want people to know that the Lancers are going to be in Omaha.”

Edwards said the Sarpy ice-arena project is not a sure thing, but he is highly optimistic that it will happen. He envisioned 2010 as the earliest possible date to begin construction. The Omaha Royals plan to play ball at their new 6,000-seat stadium in 2011.

Edwards wouldn't close the door on attracting a professional hockey franchise to the Sarpy site. Who knows how the minor league hockey landscape will look in eight or 10 years, he said.

Perhaps, by then, the Lancers may want out of the Civic Auditorium and reconsider Sarpy County, he said. Perhaps a different minor league hockey association would skyrocket in popularity and consider bringing a franchise to the area. Perhaps the metro area hockey base would be better positioned to support another minor league hockey franchise, he said.

If any of those scenarios develop, Sarpy County would have a ready-for-use, fully functioning, 4,500-seat arena available, Edwards said. “Leagues change, owners change, who knows what will happen in even five years?” Edwards said. “The East Coast Hockey League might be going crazy. Well, then, we're available for something like that.”

Contact the writer:

444-1056, john.ferak@owh.com