Forest Mowed Down for new Arena

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A little over 14 acres of woods just east of Providence Hospital between the UAA and APU campuses was recently mowed down as prep work begins for the new UAA sports arena in east Anchorage. Surviving Governor Parnell's red pen last year, the project isn't without some controversy as the arena will surprisingly not have the ability to convert to a hockey rink for UAA Seawolf hockey -- arguably the most visible and prominent sport among UAA athletics. What it will have, however, is a seating capacity of 5,000 (pretty good, considering the Sullivan fits a little over 6,000), a separate gym for the gymnastics program, admin/coaching offices, as well as locker and team rooms for just about every sport found in UAA (again, except hockey). The building will be 196,000 square feet and will cost $109 million. Here's a video showing how the new arena is expected to look like.

Area that has been cleared.

Wind Turbines Arrive in Anchorage

The scene at the Port of Anchorage last weekend.

Several pieces of wind turbines arrived at the Port of Anchorage last weekend from Tianchang, China, and are being staged nearby until later in the year when they will be sent to Fire Island for the new wind farm being constructed by the CIRI native corporation. Construction should begin this summer and will be partly up and running by the end of the year. The wind farm will eventually be made up of 33 wind turbines and will provide 144,000 megawatts of juice each year for up to 17,000 households. Since CIRI isn't in the business of public utility, Chugach Electric will buy the power from them in order to provide it to the mainland via its underwater transmission lines.