‘Valley Fun Center’ to open next year

WASILLA — If there’s one thing a businessman hates, it’s owning property that doesn’t make any money.

That motivation drove John Schweiger to take a roughly five-acre parcel of land adjacent to his Valley Cinema, near the intersection of Seward Meridian Parkway and Old Matanuska Road, to several developers looking for a potential use for the remainder of his property, and even considered selling it for a few years.

However, none of the proposed uses for the property proved to be very impressive, so Schweiger took matters into his own hands.

“I started to think I should protect my front yard,” he said. “That’s where this would be located, my front yard.”

Schweiger said he knew he didn’t want a retail outlet, and he didn’t want a clothing store, but struggled to come up with alternatives. One night, he and his wife returned from an outing to a go-kart track, and the idea came to him.

“Why don’t you do a cart track?” he remembers she said to him.

That idea became the seed for 58,333-square-foot Valley Fun Center, estimated to cost approximately $6 million by its completion. Schweiger and the John Schweiger Loving Trust received a $5.4-million loan Nov. 7 from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a non-profit state corporation created in 1967 to promote economic development in Alaska. In this case, the authority’s loan participation program provided terms of 25 years at an interest rate of 5.35 percent, officials said.

Northrim Bank originated the loan and will provide its $600,000 remainder, officials said. The facility is expected to create between 35 and 60 jobs ranging from entry-level to managerial, Schweiger said.

A combination of demographics and Schweiger’s leadership made the center an attractive prospect, said AIDEA spokesman Karsten Rodvik.

“In this case, this is a good investment, especially with all of the young families in the Valley,” he said.

“We think this will be a real good addition for the Valley,” Rodvik added.

Local loan participation program businesses include Rock-On Climbing and grocery store chain Three Bears, Rodvik added.

The center is imagined as an all-ages venue for local families to have fun, potentially after enjoying a movie at his nearby theater, Schweiger said.

“We have hundreds of people going to the movie theater every day,” he said. “One of the things I hear from our patrons a lot: they’ll come out of a movie and they’ll go ‘Well, what do you want to go do now?’”

Schweiger hasn’t yet firmed up all of the details, and is being cagey about others, but he has two or three things he said the center will provide. First, is an indoor track featuring electric-powered racing carts — Schweiger is quick to point out that they are not go-karts — functioning on a NASCAR-inspired timing system.

“You’re not racing against other people, you’re racing against the clock,” he said. “It is a kick and it is very addictive, because you do not want your girlfriend or your best friend to have a better time than you.”

The facility also will contain several banquet halls to accommodate seasonal parties and banquets, a large-scale food bistro, and a full-sized laser tag arena, Schweiger said.

Construction dates are also tenuous, but the hoped-for opening date is around Thanksgiving 2015, Schweiger said.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com.