ECHL: Bradenton area stadium plan preface for ECHL expansion

On Tuesday evening at the Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club, plans for a state-of-the-art arena that will be home to a new ECHL hockey team beginning in 2005 officially were unveiled. It was another step in a process that began almost two years ago and was kept under wraps.

And the league's commissioner, Brian McKenna, along with the team's ownership group, DVA Sports, believe this expansion site will lead to the addition of perhaps four more ECHL teams in Florida.

"I think the intention is, once we build a team here, we will have a rivalry all over Florida," said Salvador Diaz-Verson, principal owner of DVA Sports, which owns the ECHL's Columbus Cottonmouths. "Our goal hopefully is that the ECHL would grant another three to four teams in Florida so that we can just travel the state."

That news brought a smile to the face of Florida Everblades team president/general manager Craig Brush, who was one of the guest speakers at the gala event.

For the past two years, the Everblades and Pensacola Ice Pilots have been the only two teams in the Sunshine State, and Brush pointed out that his closest bus trip now is eight hours. Where the new arena is being built would be about a 90-minute trip from Estero's TECO Arena.

Brush played a big role in helping push this project forward by providing DVA Sports and their development partner, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, Inc., valuable information related to making such a large project come to fruition. He went through the process six years ago in getting TECO built at a cost of $20 million.

"If they have the cooperation (with the two counties, Sarasota and Manatee), which it appears that they do, that should run fairly smoothly," said Brush, who returned from Florida's West Coast trip Monday night. "Financing is obviously a big thing, but that's for them to secure, and it looks like they have the wherewithal to do that. I think they're off to the races."

But Diaz-Verson said while TECO and the Everblades are the model, his group also looked at other buildings, newer buildings like the arena in London, Ontario, for ideas. The 220,000-square foot multi-purpose facility will cost an estimated $46 million and will be funded entirely with private monies, as TECO -- at 170,000 square feet -- was.

The building will cover approximately 30 acres two and a half miles east of I-75, contain 7,400 stadium-style seats, 2,480 parking spaces, a full-service restaurant and bar and one practice rink as opposed to the two that TECO has.

Groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2004, pending permits and approvals, and it is estimated to take around 14 months to complete, in time for the start of the 2005-06 ECHL season (TECO was built in just under 11 months).

As for finding a coach and getting the hockey operations underway, Cottonmouths general manager Phil Roberto said that won't be a problem. The Cottonmouths are affiliated with the NHL's Montreal Canadiens, as will be the new team, so Roberto said they could find a young coaching prospect within the Montreal organization and develop more of their players with the expansion team.

"This is a market that we've wanted to be in for a number of years. The building has been the impediment," McKenna said. "Now, the Sarasota-Bradenton area has it all."