Oakland Community College's board has approved a lease for a new Little Caesars youth hockey arena, clearing a path for a rink that will anchor a broader sports complex planned for the school's Orchard Ridge campus in Farmington Hills.
The vote, reported by Crain's Detroit Business, sets up a project that pairs a new field house built by OCC with a new ice arena built and operated by the Little Caesars AAA Hockey Club. The arrangement effectively splits the construction duties between the college and the hockey organization, with each side responsible for a different piece of the planned complex.
According to Oakland Community College, the first phase of the project calls for a softball field, a field house and the hockey arena. The college says it is funding the softball field and field house itself, while the Little Caesars AAA Hockey Club is funding the arena — a cost-sharing setup OCC describes as a public-private partnership it is currently exploring.
How the Land Deal Is Structured
OCC has made clear that the hockey club will not own the ground beneath the new rink. Per the college, LCAAA will lease the land rather than receive ownership of it, and OCC says it will be fairly compensated for that use. The lease approved by the board this week builds on groundwork laid more than a year earlier, when OCC's Board of Trustees signed off on an agreement covering the fundamental terms of the arrangement back on June 17, 2025.
The timeline between that initial agreement and this week's lease approval suggests a methodical, multi-step process rather than a single rushed decision — one that the college says still has a long runway ahead. OCC projects the new sports facilities will tentatively open in 2028, and estimates that the first phase alone, from design through completed construction, will take three to five years.
What Remains Unclear
Plenty of specifics haven't surfaced yet. Neither the college nor the hockey club has disclosed the lease's financial terms, the arena's eventual size or capacity, or a firm construction start date. It's also not yet known how ice time, public access or OCC student use of the facilities might be structured once the complex is built.
Comparable arrangements elsewhere hint at what's possible when colleges and hockey organizations share facilities, though none offers a direct blueprint for Farmington Hills. Adrian College's Arrington Ice Arena, for instance, hosts the school's NCAA Division III men's and women's hockey teams alongside several ACHA club squads, according to Adrian College — a reminder that campus rinks can serve more than one program at once, even if OCC hasn't detailed similar plans.
For now, the approved lease marks a concrete step toward a project that has been a little over a year in the making. With a tentative 2028 opening still on the books and major design and construction work ahead, Farmington Hills residents and area hockey families will likely be watching for the next round of details as OCC and the Little Caesars AAA Hockey Club move the Orchard Ridge complex from paperwork toward pavement.
