City and Genesis trade blame for costly repairs, unusable rink at Wichita Ice Center

The Wichita Ice Center won’t have ice on both its skating rinks until mid-July, city officials said Tuesday, marking more than a year of operating at half capacity after a change in management that was supposed to improve conditions at the city’s premier ice skating attraction.

City officials said Tuesday that supply-chain issues have delayed necessary fixes to ice-making equipment and dehumidifiers. In court filings, the city and Genesis Health Clubs, the previous managers of the facility, have blamed each other for the costly repairs.

The City Council approved a $238,610 bid for a new cooling tower, replacing one that was installed in 2019. The council also signed off on spending an additional $92,400 to rent dehumidifiers, on top of approximately $50,000 the city has already spent on rentals. Two new dehumidifiers are estimated to cost $300,000 to $400,000 each, the city’s facilities manager Chris Sewell said.

The new cooling tower won’t be installed until mid-July. The dehumidifiers are expected as late as December.

City Council member Bryan Frye raised concerns about the costs.

“Between the $50,000 we’ve spent from August to January, we’re asking today for $92,000, so we’re spending half of what it costs for a new one, basically, on rental?” Frye said. “Wow.”

The Wichita Ice Center, built by the city of Wichita in 1996 for about $9 million, has an Olympic-sized skating rink and an NHL hockey rink.

The hockey rink hasn’t had ice since July 2022, six months after the city changed management from Genesis Health Clubs to Rink Management Service Corp., following public outrage at the lack of maintenance at the city-owned facility under Genesis management.

The city also filed a lawsuit against Genesis and its owner Rodney Steven, saying the fitness company failed to maintain the ice center and stopped reimbursing the city for a renovation after making one payment. City officials have declined to comment on the lawsuit.

In recent court filings, the city blamed Genesis for the failed ice making equipment that has left the ice center operating at half capacity.

“Genesis failed to perform the necessary maintenance and repairs of the Wichita Ice Center facility, including a failure to maintain the ice making equipment and major ice maintenance equipment with chemically-treated water, causing this equipment to fail in June 2021,” the city’s lawsuit says.

After hiring contractors to repair the cooling tower “in an attempt to remove calcium buildup caused by Genesis’s improper use of plain water for several weeks leading up to the breakdown, instead of the chemically-treated water required,” the city lawsuit says. “The unit was returned to service following the repairs before failing again beginning in July 2022 due to deterioration and leaking in the coils of the equipment.”

Wichita also claims in the lawsuit that Genesis failed to vacate the building for three months after the contract expired, and, on the way out, “agents and/or employees of defendant Genesis removed certain property from the facility — presumably for use by defendant Genesis at other non-City-owned locations — including locker room doors, flooring and wall-mounted ballet barres.”

Genesis last month filed a counterclaim that blames the city for lack of upkeep at the ice center. The counterclaim says Genesis informed the city of problems at the ice center, including the ice making equipment, black mold, HVAC problems and others, but the city failed to properly maintain, repair or replace the equipment.

“The City failed to properly maintain, repair and or/replace ice making equipment and major ice maintenance equipment, including replacement of an approximately 25-year-old chiller for the ice rink, despite Genesis’s requests that the City address same,” Genesis’s counterclaim says. “This led to the chiller failing and the loss of sheets of ice for periods of time. Genesis was forced to install a temporary chiller, the costs of which the City agreed but failed to reimburse.”

The Genesis court filing also claims the city shot down its attempts to procure a reliable cooling tower back in 2019.

“In that regard, Genesis submitted a bid for a new chiller from a company that had significant experience and that offered a 5-year warranty. Instead of accepting that bid, the City made the baffling decision to spend approximately twice as much in taxpayer dollars on a chiller from a company that had never installed one before and that only offered a 1-year warranty,” Genesis said in its counterclaim. “The chiller is now out of warranty and is already having mechanical issues, including those for which the City claims Genesis is responsible.”