I was concerned looking at the site proposal, it mentions each venue & the facilities they will offer. There is no mention of an indoor Go Kart at any venue, yet there‘s photos of an indoor Go Kart, oversight, hype marketing, no idea. It also showed a paddle board court, again no mention of that being planned at any venue.
Whoever gets the lease will need a lot of investment & knowledge, they will need to have a viable business plan, Greenbank specialised in running venues & they couldn’t increase revenues. From a Devils point of view having the lease would mean full use of the facility & no costs to use, downside though is lost revenue from the major user, so how will that hole be filled, that could be a risk too far.
For an outside landlord id imagine the ice agreement will be ripped up & as there is no alternative venue, I’d imagine Devils costs will increase significantly and be passed on or at worst the current owner group jack it in.
Worse case scenario is no leaseholder is found, the Council in their records state the Council do not have the funds to maintain the IAW as is & have no intentions to. The discussions surrounding that scenario was discussed in a Confidential meeting , no record of what happens exsist in the public access. It’s possible a new leaseholder can be found but would want the current venue repurposed into an alternative type of venue, such as a multi purpose sporting venue, to include an indoor Go Kart track.
The relationship between Greenbank & the Council broke down a few yrs ago, the Council has been vocal about not having any interest in the IAW for a number of yrs, the Owners of the Devils organisation should be well aware of the situation, Todd was forced into running it when Greenbank told the Council to shove it up their proverbial. The future of the IAW has been in doubt for a number of yrs, the shelving of the proposed Ski Slope & surrounding development, increased Climate Crisis issues, Brexit & now the current financial crisis are all major hurdles in a situation that was doubtful to succeed well before. The other risk is the Council have a long track record of not implementing their plans, the current plans are still yet to find sufficient investments to fund their proposal, the danger is the replacement cycle track gets the cycle version of the BBT and after several yrs they get a inferior venue. Knowing that history would an investor accept the risk based on the increase in footfall or would they walk away until the development is being built. Judging by the time line, I’d say it’s being rushed, any investor would want security that the area surrounding the IAW was 100% getting built & built quickly. The Council are nowhere near able to give that guarantee.
