Alaska News

Legislator promotes plan for new UAA sports arena

JUNEAU -- Everybody loves a winner, and the Final Four run by UAA's basketball teams is inspiring some Seawolves fans with very deep pockets in the state capital to try again for funding for a new campus sports arena.

State Rep. Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, said Friday he intends to add $1 million to next year's state budget to pay for the planning and design of a new arena to replace the undersized and aging Wells Fargo Sports Complex.

State lawmakers approved the $1 million in last year's budget, but it was among many projects Gov. Sarah Palin cut with her veto pen.

Meyer, who is co-chairman of the powerful House Finance Committee, said he and other lawmakers are aiming to save much of the state's multibillion-dollar oil revenue surplus and to hold down spending.

But they're likely to support a $46 million health sciences building for the University of Alaska Anchorage, and Meyer said he also likes the idea of a new sports arena.

It doesn't hurt that the UAA men's and women's basketball teams had awesome seasons, he said, each making the NCAA Division II Final Four before losing Thursday.

"Everything we do in Juneau and politics and probably in life, it's all about timing," Meyer said. "They really do need a sports arena."

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Meyer plans to add the $1 million in planning money to what's known as the state capital budget, where lawmakers pay for hometown projects such as roads, buildings and community improvements.

The Senate already has rolled out its version of the capital budget, and it doesn't include the UAA money.

Meyer, however, said Friday he'll put the arena funding in the House capital budget. The House and Senate can talk out differences in their respective versions and then see if the finished product flies this time with the governor, he said.

Fran Ulmer, UAA's interim chancellor and a former lieutenant governor, couldn't be reached Friday night for comment.

But she provided information to Meyer promoting the planning money for a long-sought sports arena that ultimately would cost $80 million to build. The 130,000-square-foot arena would have a main gym for basketball, volleyball and other events with seating for 3,500, as opposed to 1,160 in the Wells Fargo Sports Complex.

The new arena building also would feature a side gym, a gymnastics wing, workout rooms, classrooms and offices.

The Wells Fargo sports and recreation space, at 85,000 square feet, is 30 years old and "woefully inadequate" for a campus of more than 15,000 students, according to a briefing paper Meyer was given.

Lots of fans couldn't get tickets for the recent men's Division II West Regional basketball tournament, which UAA hosted and won.

West and East high schools each have bigger gyms than UAA, and the UAA sports facilities are the worst in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, the briefing paper said.

"Some of our players can't even stand completely upright inside the locker room because the ceilings are too low," it said.

The paper doesn't indicate where the new sports arena would be built, but one site that's been mentioned is university-owned land along Northern Lights Boulevard near East High School.

Find Wesley Loy online at adn.com/contact/wloy or call him in Juneau at 1-907-586-1531.

By WESLEY LOY

wloy@adn.com

Wesley Loy

Wesley Loy is a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News.

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