Borough approaches a decision on purchasing, taking over Big Lake Lions Recreation Center

The Matanuska Susitna Borough is edging closer to a decision to buy the Big Lake Lions Recreation Center, an important community asset with its ice arena, second-floor space for community meetings and events and a commercial-scale kitchen.

An ordinance proposing the purchase was introduced in April by Bill Gamble, a member of the assembly, but has been on hold since then.

The price would be $400,000 to buy the center and the tract it sits on. Mat-Su community director Jillian Morrissey told the borough assembly last Tuesday, Sept. 5. Morrissey has developed a 175-page analysis of the possible acquisition for the assembly to use in making a decision.

“This is just a report,” on the proposal. “There’s no decision yet,” borough Mayor Edna DeVries said. There’s no timetable for the decision either, Morrissey said.

The Big Lake Lions Club has operated the facility for over a decade with Bill Haller, its manager, as the one full-time staff assisted by volunteers. In most years the center more or less pays direct expenses with about $250,000 in revenues, Haller told the assembly at its meeting.

Morrissey said the purchase would involve $400,000 paid to Big Lake Lions Club with about $260,000 set aside for first-year operating costs. Of the $400,000 paid to Big Lake Lions, $300,000 would go to repay a loan to the club from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the state development finance corporation, with $100,000 to the Lions Club itself for the funds it raised and invested.

The center is important to not just for Big Lake residents but from the Meadow Lakes, Knik and other parts of Mat-Su, Haller said. There are about 33,000 “visits” per year, mostly to the skating rink, and the Houston high school uses the rink for hockey practice and games.

For skating, an unusual feature of the center’s ice rink is that it has “natural freezing,” instead of mechanical freezing through refrigeration. This is done essentially by leaving vents open to draw in cold air. It results in a condition known as “hard ice” preferred by many skaters.

Haller also said wide community support for the center was shown in funds contributed locally when the center was built. Eight hundred thousand dollars was raised in contributions from the Big Lake area, Haller said.

But it’s a thin operation financially, with not much after direct expenses left for upgrades. What’s important now is that Haller is having to step aside for family reasons and there appears to be no one available to take his place as manager, at least under the current organizational structure of the center.

Haller said he has tried to interest other nonprofits in taking over operations but there are no apparent takers given the center’s thin margin. Large community-orientated organizations like the Mat-Su Health Foundation and the Anchorage-based Rasmussen Foundation can give support for capital projects, such as building improvements, but not for operating expenses, Haller said.

Haller said he has also tried to interest the private company that operates community recreation centers in Anchorage including the Subway youth sports center in south Anchorage but the offer was declined because of the distance to Mat-Su and the inefficiencies that would create.

Ownership and operation by the borough appears to be the best option going forward, and would allow for long-term planning and an expansion of services. This also fits with public ownership and operation of the Menard Memorial Center in Wasilla owned by the City of Wasilla and recreation facilities elsewhere in the borough.

Morrissey said she could see possibilities of things at a borough-owned facility like day-care services that could serve wide parts of the community, as well as community events.

The borough might also consider purchasing an adjacent, privately-owned parcel to allow for expanded parking on a regular basis, Morrissey said. The current owner of the tract allows the property to be used for overflow parking but that might not continue if the center ownership changes from a community nonprofit, the Lions Club, to the borough, she said.

It would be best if the borough owned that property too. The parcel has an appraised value of $22,000 for property taxes but there is apparently no other appraisal as yet.