Not everyone on board with Palmer bandstand

PALMER — The idea of putting a bandstand on the stretch of lawn between the Mat-Su Borough building and the Palmer Library has met its first bit of opposition.

In a letter last week to Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson, Richard Estelle, vice president of the Palmer Historical Society, writes that the lawn — which he calls “the Quad” and which bandstand supporters call “the Greens” — needs to be preserved.

“The open quadrangle space was a very intentional central feature designed into the layout of Palmer’s ‘Community Center’ when the Matanuska Colony was located here in 1935,” Estelle writes.

“The designers understood that a central open ‘commons’ was a valuable asset to a community, serving as a central gathering and meeting place, providing visual relief to surrounding development and aiding in the sense of unity for the community.”

He goes on to say that there aren’t a lot of Alaska communities with open quads and that Palmer’s quadrangle makes the town unique. In an interview, he said that the historical society is not opposed to Palmer having a bandstand.

“If the community wants a bandstand and the (Palmer) Arts Council wants to sponsor that, that’s great, it just needs to go in an appropriate space,” Estelle said. “The quad is not the appropriate space for that.”

Howard Bess with the Palmer Arts Council is one of the people organizing to build the structure.

“I knew that there were people out there who had this particular attitude that nothing should happen on it, it was supposed to be just a big patch of green grass and that’s it,” Bess said. “I still think it’s a great project.”

But he’s not so sure that the two things are incompatible. Indeed, he said, central green spaces like that are the kinds of places one would expect to find a bandstand.

“I grew up in a small town back in the Midwest that had a central park with a bandstand and it was a place of community activity. Every Tuesday night through the summer the community band played a band concert and all the stores stayed open and all the farmers came into town on Tuesday evening,” Bess said.

The space as it is now goes largely unnoticed and unused. A year ago in July that started to change with an art and garden fair held there.

“It was the first event of any kind that had been held on the Greens in anyone’s memory. That’s what it’s been is just a big patch of green grass,” he said.

Estelle said that a bandstand on the order of what the arts council is talking about can’t help but greatly impact the quad.

The plan calls for a 32-foot diameter structure built with open walls and a roof almost like a gazebo.

“That’s a big structure. That’s bigger than the house I live in,” Estelle said.

The quad, he said, is small and even smaller than when it was first built. The library took a good chunk out of it when it was built. Estelle said original plans had a church in that spot, so he doesn’t begrudge the library its location.

The quad, he said, is also on the National Register of Historic Places, meaning that changing it might be a complicated process.

One thing Bess and Estelle agree on is that the plan is something they’d like to see debated.

“The Palmer Historical Society urges that the city sponsor a comprehensive community discussion and plan development for management of the Palmer Historic District before any significant additional permanent development is approved on city property within the district,” Estelle wrote in his letter.

Bess said he’s counting on there being quite a bit of discussion. The bandstand idea has a couple years of discussion and city council decisions built into its timeline.

“There will be a community discussion here and that’s fine, because in our original proposal we said that it should be built as part of a plan,” Bess said. “Since it’s the city’s property why it’s the city’s business to proceed with a plan.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.