Home to the Queenstown Ice Skating Club, Queenstown Ice Hockey Club and its champion SkyCity Stampede team, Queenstown Ice Arena has been owned by local-based brothers Dan and Ted Graham since 2010.
Since then they have spent more than $2.5 million transforming it from a draughty, ageing facility — originally closed in, in 1996 — into a modern rink that is arguably as good as any in New Zealand.
A condition of their first five years’ lease with the council was they had to spend $500,000 doing up the rink, in return for rates relief — in the end, they spent far more.
As for why they are selling, Dan Graham said "it’s simply [because] we feel we have accomplished everything we set out to achieve with the facility".
"Although the structure had been endowed with great ‘bones’, courtesy of the previous owners who had built it at great expense, it was not a modern, fully enclosed ice facility suitable for ice sports."
Through a tremendous amount of hard work, great employees, perseverance and millions of dollars expended on improvements, the town could boast it was now, arguably, home to the finest ice facility in the country.
"This was our vision from the outset.
"The business is in strong financial health, and the opportunity for further expansion and development lies ahead."
Dan Graham said he and his brother had other interests they could pursue in town, but there was no danger skaters and hockey players would be left to skate on thin ice.
"We are more than happy to continue should a sale not eventuate.
"We take great pride in building, operating and maintaining a facility that has enabled ice sports to flourish in Queenstown."
Local Colliers brokers Mark Simpson and Rory O’Donnell are marketing the business, including the building, plant and equipment, and the leasehold interest, for sale by deadline private treaty, closing September 5.
Mr Simpson said the owners had "turned it around from something that probably was going backwards to becoming a profitable business".
Although a new owner was obliged to keep it available for community use as an ice rink, there was still scope to do other things, Mr O’Donnell said.
An example was China Amway booking it exclusively for seven weeks last spring to host skating, shows and dinners for its delegates.
Mr Simpson said prospective buyers could be "people associated with ice, including the ice hockey club, food and beverage hospitality operators who can see a bit of a twist, and other tourism operators who might see this as another sort of avenue for revenue".
The lease expires in 2050, but that’s not to say, Simpson suggests, a new operator could not pitch for an extension.
Stampede general manager and its liaison with the ice hockey club Ross Burns said the Grahams had been "a huge asset both to the rink and the club, and while we’d certainly be sad to see them go, if they do end up selling, they have done a wonderful job in making it the venue it is today".
He thought it had become "probably the best venue in the country".
