Dan Roberge
Hello, Rita Mitchell. How are you?
Rita Mitchell
Good. How are you?
Dan Roberge
Nice to meet you. Tell the world who you are and what you do.
Rita Mitchell
I'm a regional general manager for sports Facilities companies. I am based in the New York, New Jersey region. One of my facilities is the brand new Davis Center at the Harlem Air in Central Park. It is a four season facility that is an ice rink in the winter, it's turf in the spring and fall, and it's a swimming pool in the summer. And it's all on the same surface, which is pretty cool.
Dan Roberge
How does that work?
Rita Mitchell
A lot of work, a lot of work. A lot of people, working together to make the magic happen. And then I run two indoor Year-Round ice skating facilities in new Jersey.
Dan Roberge
All year round. So even in the summer, you keep going there.
Rita Mitchell
We are skating in the summer.
Dan Roberge
Oh, nice. So now, how long have you been doing this? How did you get into this type of, business?
Rita Mitchell
I got, accidentally, how all good things happen. Someone wanted to hire me for my work ethic, and taught me how to run ice rinks. That was about 30, 35 years ago, and I've been doing it ever since.
Dan Roberge
Wow. Incredible. So what are some of the challenges for keeping the ice cold in the summer? Like what's the technology that helps run those ongoing?
Rita Mitchell
Well, humidity is very, very important. You know, you need to have dry heat in order to create your ice. And it's really important that you maintain the humidity levels inside your facility when you're indoors. And your freezing from below has to be very efficient, right? Because you've got high temperatures outside. And, that's going to affect your inside air temperature as well. So you can have outdoor skating, ice skating in warm climates. But it's a lot of energy, a lot of energy okay.
Dan Roberge
And so at Central Park, you convert it? When summer comes along and converts from an ice rink?
Rita Mitchell
Swimming pool.
Dan Roberge
I don't even like... maybe paint a picture. How does that look?
Rita Mitchell
So it's a larger than Olympic sized swimming pool. And when the swimming pool season is over, around Labor Day, we put what's essentially a stage into the swimming pool, so that it levels out the ground to the top of the swimming pool. So you don't really know that there's a swimming pool there when it's turf season or ice skating season. And most people when they come to the ice rink right now, their first question is, where's the swimming pool? You're standing on it. And so it's a really cool concept. There is, online, there's a time lapse video. So you can see how it goes from pool to being a flat surface.
Dan Roberge
That's amazing. Is there other facilities like that across the US? I mean, I've never heard of that before.
Rita Mitchell
Like there are other facilities that are for different seasons, but I think this one, it's the newest and it's the most in-depth, intricate design. I think the architects were really creative. And then they built the building that accents the pool or the ice rink into this side of kind of like a hill or a mountain. And so it's really part of the ecosystem. It doesn't look like a building. It's just kind of there.
Dan Roberge
Wow, yeah. So where can people find out more about it?
Rita Mitchell
So that's the Davis Center at Harlem that is essentially run by the Central Park Conservancy. So if you go to the Central Park Conservancy website and look for the Davis Center, Davis Center, your tag, your tagline, and you can find all the information and the time lapse video. And if you happen to be in New York City, check it out.
Dan Roberge
That's amazing. I will definitely check it out. Very interested in that. Thank you very much for talking to us.
Rita Mitchell
Yeah. No problem.
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