1 of 3
Top Golf
Top Golf will demolish the Hardee's IcePlex to make room for its new Chesterfield location.
2 of 3
3 of 3
Top Golf
Goodbye, Hardee’s IcePlex. Hello, Top Golf.
The Dallas-based golf chain has purchased the Chesterfield Valley ice rink and will demolish it to build one of its popular entertainment complexes, which typically come with multi-level, climate-controlled driving range bays as well as other games and dining and bar facilities.
A Top Golf spokeswoman tells SLM the company has no updates about the project yet. We’ll update when Top Golf comments on its newest location.
Update, 3:30 p.m.: The sale may be final, but Top Golf still has to go through a rezoning process, which takes at least six months. Top Golf has submitted a zoning application, according to the St. Louis Business Journal, for a three-story facility with more than 100 hitting bays, a family lounge area, a full service bar and restaurant, and an open-air rooftop terrace. There’s no public hearing yet scheduled for the application. Top Golf has yet to make the announcement official, telling media (including SLM) that it’ll post to its company website “soon.” End of update.
IcePlex co-owner John Ross tells West News Magazine the long-rumored sale is official and employees and tenants have been informed. Ross adds the IcePlex will likely close in March or April 2017, when demolition will start.
The spring 2017 closing date means the IcePlex will stay open for the 2016-17 hockey season, reports Fox Sports Midwest hockey reporter Andy Strickland:
Top Golf operates in 21 U.S. cities, including Chicago and Overland Park, Kansas, with 12 more locations opening soon and more than 8 million annual visitors worldwide. The entertainment chain, founded by two golf-loving English brothers, brings sports bar-style drinks and snacks along with microchip technology to the sport, allowing players to instantly score each shot’s accuracy and distance like a golf-sized outdoor dartboard.
While many St. Louisans celebrated the news that the region is getting its own location of the popular entertainment chain, the loss of another ice rink hit St. Louis hockey players and supporters hard. The IcePlex, which had three rinks, has been vital to local youth hockey for 20 years.
Even before the news was official, Chesterfield resident and former city council member Matt Segal bemoaned the sale on Facebook.
“I never thought the day would come when we would have to worry about where our children would play hockey or figure skate,” Segal wrote, according to West News. “Hearing that the Hardee’s IcePlex in Chesterfield is likely closing has shaken our family.
Hockey fans quickly called for a regional effort to build more rink access, especially for youth leagues. The St. Louis Blues will make Scottrade Center available for youth hockey organizations, according to Strickland.
What’s your take? Are you happy to hear Top Golf is coming to St. Louis, or are you lamenting the loss for local hockey teams? Tell us in the comments.
Contact Lindsay Toler by an email at LToler@stlmag.com or on Twitter @StLouisLindsay. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
