Now what?
Since 15 days remain before the excited Richie and Barbara Takahashi family are scheduled to take over operation of the Culver City Ice Arena for at least the next six months, the ground is too rocky, the past is too volatile, and the time-frame is too broad to predict what will happen to the rink beyond the end of this essay.
Details of the cautious Takahashi family’s agreement are being worked out in a face-to-face meeting this afternoon with the Karagozian family, owners of the land since the middle of the last century.
Mike Karagozian said that “we canceled the lease” with Planet Granite in the middle of Wednesday afternoon, at 3:40.
Because of a nearly unbelievable series of legal maneuverings, charges and counter assertions, both the short- and long-term intentions for the much loved Ice Arena, became muddier by the hour.
City Hall, which repeatedly declared itself a neutral party, increasingly found itself standing in quicksand as bitter feelings escalated on both sides – the new lessee vs. everyone, else possibly except for City Hall.
Last Friday evening, Mr. Karagozian began negotiating a separate lease the eager Takahashi family, all members of whom are counting the hours until March 1.
For weeks, at least, members of the Takahashi family have been hopeful – it seemed like a dream, especially fiscally – about running the rink where all of them have labored for decades.
Mr. Karagozian’s accession to their wishes has been portrayed as a humanitarian gesture – give deserving persons an opportunity to take charge.
And saving an estimated 50 to 60 jobs of Arena employees who otherwise would have gone unemployed after the present lease, with outgoing CEO John Jackson, formally concludes tomorrow at midnight.
Planet Granite, in the Bay Area, had signed a 15-year agreement, with a five-year option, with Mr. Karagozian on Monday, Dec. 23.
If it ever was a love match, both sides nimbly masked it.
On Sunday, Feb. 2, 41 days after the signing, according to the deal, the venerable Ice Arena, that opened in 1962, would close forever. Four months later, on June 1, Planet Granite intended to launch its rock-climbing/yoga/fitness center format that has been well received in Northern California.
