I just purchased an ice habitat and put it on an island. It tells me it is a social building and I need to hire people to get it up and running. I ended up putting it in storage with the metal habitat I purchased some time ago which has done the same exact thing. These habitats do me no good in storage. Any suggestions?

Yeah you either have to hire friends to open them or open the slots using gems. These two types have always been like this along with a few other buildings such as the tavern and dragon market as well as purchasing islands. This is a social game, hence needing the friends to purchase them.