Big Lake rec center set to reopen with fresh paint, expanded hours and new fees

What you need to know:

• The Big Lake Lions Recreation Center will reopen Friday with expanded hours — and new fees. The center’s ownership transferred from the Big Lake Lions Club to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in July.
• The center has undergone safety and cosmetic upgrades, including security cameras and minor repairs. Fees for activities like ice skating and putt-putt golf are increasing due to the transition from volunteer-based to borough-staffed operations.
• The borough plans to further enhance the facility, including a potential $1.5 million upgrade to install a refrigerated ice system, with funding currently being sought through grants.

BIG LAKE — A Big Lake recreation center and community ice rink will reopen to the public Friday with a fresh coat of paint, expanded hours — and increased fees.

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough purchased the Big Lake Lions Recreation Center from the Big Lake Lions Club in July and will operate and staff the facility as part of its community development program, officials said.

Borough officials will host a grand reopening and information fair at the center Friday from 3 to 7 p.m., with free admission. Hamburgers and hot dogs will be available for purchase as a fundraiser for the Houston High School hockey team.

The facility has been closed since July 1 for a series of updates and repairs, including newly installed security cameras and connections to the borough’s information technology network.

Changes to the building and how it’s operated also mean hiring borough staff to run it and adding or increasing some fees to help cover costs, officials said. 

For example, fees for recreational ice skating will increase from free to $5, while putt-putt golf will increase from $5 per visit to $10, according to a borough fee chart. Residents who purchased activity punch cards before July 1 should visit the center and speak with borough staff about entrance options, officials said. 

The updated fees help cover some of the borough’s costs to run the facility, Borough Community Development Director Jillian Morrisey said. The Lions Club was able to operate the facility at a much lower cost because it had short hours and relied heavily on volunteers for staffing.  

Built by the Big Lake Lions Club in 2010 with grants and community donations, the facility is the only recreation center in the Big Lake area and hosts an air-cooled hard ice rink, which relies on frigid air pumped into the building overnight instead of a powered refrigeration system.  

Between November and March, the rink is replaced with popular pickleball and putt-putt areas. The two-story, 26,000-square-foot facility also houses a large community room and commercial kitchen.

The borough spent $400,000 to purchase the building and its contents. The Lions Club said last year it needed to offload the center or shutter it completely because its primary operator, longtime Lions volunteer Bill Haller, was moving out of state to care for a sick family member, and no other support was available.

Bringing the building and its programs into the borough’s recreation network will more than double the amount of time it is open each week, from about 18 to at least 40 hours, facility manager Adam Madson said during a building tour Tuesday.

Most of the updates borough crews have made since the facility closed for repairs July 1 — including a fresh coat of paint and minor building repairs — may go unnoticed by users, Madson said. Other upgrades still in progress will make a big difference, including user-requested doors on locker room entrances and a collection of new rental skates, he said.

“There’s a lot of stuff that people aren’t going to see because it’s a lot of safety stuff that we had to get the building ready,” he said.

Madson said the borough hopes to eventually give the center a major boost by replacing the rink’s air-cooled system with refrigeration. That $1.5 million upgrade would both extend the rink’s ice season and make the ice more reliable because it would no longer rely on cold outdoor temperatures, he said.

The borough is currently looking for grants to pay for the project, Morrisey said.

-- Contact Amy Bushatz at contact@matsusentinel.com