Central Park Conservancy Makes $50M Pitch To Operate Wollman Rink

CENTRAL PARK, NY — The Central Park Conservancy is making a $50 million pitch to the De Blasio Administration to get named as the operator of the popular Wollman Ice Skating Rink.

The city needs a new operator for the Wollman Rink in Central Park after canceling former President Donald Trump's contracts in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The Parks Department sent out requests for proposals in the beginning of February asking concessionaires to come forward if they are interested in running the famed rink.

In details revealed in an email Tuesday, the Central Park Conservancy has proposed to the city a plan to raise and invest a minimum of $50 million to "rebuild the rink and operate it with a new focus on expanded public access and community programming."

The Conservancy says its proposal is a long-term solution that is a "sounder financial and social alternative" to the City's typical approach of awarding a short-term contract to a commercial operator that will "prioritize its own profitability."

The city has not accepted the Conservancy's proposal, but the non-profit that has run Central Park for the past four decades believes the mayor will find a letter from the organization's former Chairman Ira Millstein — "persuasive."

"Upon your decision to conclude the decades-old concession agreement with the Trump Organization, Wollman needs a new operator. This is a once-in-a-generation planning opportunity," wrote Millstein. "There is still time for the City to forego a for-profit operator. It should turn again, as it has in the past, to the Central Park Conservancy, which would coordinate Wollman with the Lasker Rink on the Harlem Meer."

However, the city doesn't seem overly persuaded by the Conservancy's push to operate Wollman Rink.

"Our goal is to have an experienced operator in place so that there is no disruption in this winter’s skating season at Wollman Rink. The most dependable way to do that is through our competitive process. If we’d gone the route of exploring a sole source agreement with the Central Park Conservancy we would have run a serious risk of not have skating this winter at both Wollman and Lasker rinks, not just Lasker," a spokeswoman from the NYC Parks Department told Patch. "We received an amazing response to our competitive RFP process and there are a number of great contenders. The review process is ongoing."

Multiple times in the Conservancy's pitch to be the new Wollman operator, the nonprofit referred to its long-planned reconstruction of the north end of Central Park, which will break ground in the coming months.

The project will revamp the Harlem Meer and fully replace the Lasker Rink and swimming pool, which the Conservancy will deploy $100 million of funds, along with $50 million from the city to make the improvements.

The Conservancy's proposal for Wollman Rink will include similar improvements to the better access to restrooms and food concessions and free summer programming planned in the upcoming work on Lasker Rink and the Harlem Meer.

You can find out more about the Central Park Conservancy here.

Read More:

• Give Wollman Rink Back To Central Park, Borough Prez Says
  
• Harlem Meer, Lasker Rink Revamp Set To Start In Central Park