Larry Robbins doesn’t play goalie but the billionaire hockey fan and philanthropist may have just made his greatest save.
Robbins pledged $41.5 million to meet a July 3 deadline to line up the financing and start construction of a two-rink ice complex at Plant Drive Park in Palm Beach Gardens.
The move lifts the Palm Beach North Athletic Foundation, a nonprofit established by financial adviser Mike Winter to build the complex, over a major hurdle encountered June 5 when the Palm Beach Gardens City Council refused to grant a three-month extension to line up tax-exempt financing.
READ MORE: Palm Beach Gardens greenlights ice rink, despite backlash
Still, Winter’s consultants expressed confidence they could get financing in place by Aug. 2, the last possible date under their city contract. Tax-exempt bonds would be worth waiting for because they would save the nonprofit $417,000 a year in interest payments.
PBNAF encountered undisclosed obstacles to lining up the financing. Its plan to go before the Florida Local Government Finance Commission in June, detailed June 5 to the City Council, fell short.
A week later, the attorney for the finance commission, Rick Harb, said PBNAF would not be on the June agenda. A few days later, he said PBNAF had dropped its request entirely to pursue “alternative funding sources.”
Who is Larry Robbins?
By “sources,” he apparently meant Robbins, who already had pledged $10 million to the project and agreed to a loan of an additional $12 million to be paid off by private contributors as construction advanced.
READ MORE: Ice-rink complex in Palm Beach Gardens scores $10 million gift
Robbins, owner of Glenview Capital Management, is a youth hockey supporter who owns a home in the city and whose Longwood Hockey recently became managing partner of Palm Beach Ice Works.
He is a former owner of the Chicago Steel, a junior hockey team. He is a former player and captain at the University of Pennsylvania and an 18-year youth coach for the North Jersey Avalanche. His New Jersey home had an ice rink in the backyard.
Forbes lists Robbins among the 1,750 richest people in the world, with $2.2 billion in assets. His family foundation focuses on education reform and he is a board member of the Robin Hood Foundation, which fights poverty in New York City.
Robbins signed a pledge to deliver $41.5 million from the Larry and Sarahmay Robbins Donor Advised Fund as needed to pay for construction. Such a fund allows tax breaks in one year even if the money is doled out over many years.
But the money must go to a tax-deductible, charity organization.
Details of the pledge were made public by the city in response to a public records request from Heather Deitchman, an opponent of the project. She shared the response with Stet News.
To meet the deadline and avoid default, PBNAF must have all of its financing secured. The contract defines “acceptable forms of ‘secured’ funds” as “cash on deposit in a bank in Florida, approved loan proceeds, committed and legally enforceable donor pledges, and any other certified source of funds in a form such that federally insured lending institutions would accept as collateral sufficient to secure a loan.”
Winter presented the pledge to the city on June 12 as proof of “compliance with the second and final fundraising milestone” under its contract to lease the 8-acre park for 40 years.
The records released by the city did not indicate whether the city has made the determination that Robbins’ pledge met the contract’s conditions.
Mike Martino, a former Gardens mayor, argued in a letter to the city that the financial pledge fails to meet the terms. He urged the city to scrutinize financial breakdowns to assure that cost overruns will be covered.
“This project is public in reality, not private,” he wrote.
Winter would not return requests for comment.
Construction must begin July 3
The pledge apparently is in addition to Robbins’ earlier $10 million pledge but would eliminate the need for his $12 million loan.
PBNAF Consultants put the cost of the facility, originally expected to be $40 million, at $53 million in their June 5 presentation to the City Council.
The terms allow PBNAF to raise money from others to reduce Robbins’ contribution.
The next deadline for PBNAF: July 3 to begin construction.
The site plan for the 123,000-square-foot building, which will hold two National Hockey League-size ice rinks for youth hockey, figure skating, public skating, adult leagues, curling and sled hockey, was approved by the City Council in January.
“It will be the nicest rink in the southern United States,” Winter told Stet News in 2024. He said he created PBNAF in 2017 to pursue the project as a community asset, reminiscent of the ice rink his father helped operate in the St. Louis suburb of Affton when he was a child.
Both Winter and Robbins have children who have grown up playing ice hockey.
“When I see people say investors, developers, I’m not an investor, I’m a donor,” Winter said. “Somebody did this for me when I was a kid. I’m trying to press this forward.”
Neighbors fight for their park
The project, however, has drawn criticism from city residents who object to the conversion of the city’s oldest park in a residential area behind Palm Beach Gardens High School off of Holly Drive.
The complex would eliminate a free skatepark, a basketball court and a fenced-off high school softball field. The city shut down pickleball courts at the park last year and called the park “a marginal recreational facility (that) attracts malcontents who engage in illegal activities.”
After the city signed the lease in April, skatepark fans and neighbors joined to oppose the project, arguing it will bring too much traffic in a residential neighborhood. They remain angry that the City Council made the decision without soliciting neighbors’ views.
The complex is expected to feature a full-service restaurant, a store, training space and an academy with support from the New York-based Hospital for Special Surgery, which has offices in West Palm Beach and Wellington. It would take advantage of a recent surge in hockey’s South Florida popularity, punctuated by consecutive NHL championships for the Broward-based Florida Panthers.
Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky has committed to operate a Gretzky Hockey School, which he founded in 2014 with his son, Ty Gretzky. They both have homes in the area.
Another supporter is insurance broker NFP, which has offices on PGA Boulevard. The company pledged $1.25 million in June 2022 and supported initiating a hockey program created by hockey Hall-of-Famer Pat LaFontaine.
At the June 5 meeting, consultants said PBNAF had spent $2.6 million to get this far and had received pledges of $12 million, including Robbins’ original $10 million pledge, with $2 million in the bank.
Editor’s note: More information about Larry Robbins was added to this story after publication.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
