Arena delays check Avs

PALMER — A major delay in a project to upgrade Palmer’s MTA Events Center will leave the Alaska Avalanche junior ice hockey team without a locker room — for a second season.

“We had ‘Mystery, Alaska’ last year living in a trailer out the back door,” team owner Mark Lee said, referring to the film about a rough but talented small-town hockey team that plays on pond ice. “It appears that’s going to be happen again this year.”

Along with cheaper rent, the city of Palmer promised a series of changes at the ice arena to attract the Avalanche when the team left Wasilla after the 2009-10 season.

A five-year lease the city signed with the team in 2010 included a commitment to build a locker room — the arena doesn’t have one — and increase seating to 1,500 to meet North American Hockey League standards by next month, when the 2011-12 season starts.

Instead, a shortage of steel needed to build the expansion has delayed the work until February, city officials say. A separate issue with the building’s design cut the number of seats to about 1,100, city officials say. There are 800 now.

The setbacks don’t change anything for community activities at the ice arena, which is heavily used by amateur youth and adult leagues, as well as high school teams.

But it does leave the Avalanche — young players, most just out of high school who live with local families — in limbo.

“It’s very important the boys have a place they call their own,” Lee said, saying the locker situation last year was hard on morale. “The impact on our team has been very noticeable. We had three veterans that didn’t come back because of this.”

Lee declined to identify the players who aren’t returning.

The city has promised to seek grant funding to add more seating, he said.

But Palmer public works director Tom Cohenour said the problem isn’t funding, but space, given the current design of the building. Another expansion could create more room, he said.

The team is paying Palmer $30,500 in rent a year plus $50,000 over a four-year period to help defray the cost of improvements.

The $1.1 million expansion was supposed to be finished by the end of October, Cohenour said. He found out in late August that a lack of available steel would push back the project by months. He has heard anecdotally that the shortage stems from Japan’s efforts to rebuild after the destructive March earthquake and tsunami.

Asked why the problem came to light so late in the project, Cohenour said the city never received a written schedule from the contractor, TC Construction Inc. in Wasilla, because the project didn’t seem big enough to warrant it.

Cohenour said TC Construction isn’t responsible for the problems with steel availability.

“They’ve done a great job,” he said. “They’re working with us to keep the costs down.”

Architect Gary Wolf, contracted by the city on the project, blamed the delay on a combination of problems getting steel and the project’s tight schedule during testimony at the city council’s Aug. 23 meeting.

Mayor DeLena Johnson told the council that Wolf warned her back in March that he was concerned about the project’s timeline.

Some council members expressed surprise and disappointment with the delays.

“It didn’t take this long last time,” council member and Palmer High School hockey coach Brad Hanson said, referring to the building’s original construction. “I really want to know where things have changed that created these giant lead times.”

Given the new timeline, the council is weighing a series of changes to the lease signed with the team. It will discuss the changes at the next regular meeting Sept. 13.

One amendment would reduce the number of seats from 1,500 to 1,100, with the promise to seek grant funding to expand seating in the future. Another amendment would give Lee more time to make three annual payments of $12,500, pushing back the final payment from December 2013 to March 2014.

A third amendment would remove a ban on alcohol sales with 10 minutes remaining in the third period. The late-game ban created in spectators “some frustration and confusion” when games went into overtime, according to a city memo.

Despite the delays, Lee said he doesn’t regret the move to Palmer.

The team was “losing money” at Wasilla’s Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center, where it paid $80,000 a year, he said.

“Palmer’s just been so much easier to deal with,” Lee said. “They understand the financial impact the team brings to the city.”