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Photo by John Wagner

Ice Alaska and the Fairbanks North Star Borough have tentatively agreed on a deal that would move the annual World Ice Art Championships to a new South Fairbanks recreation area.

The deal, first discussed publicly earlier this winter, would solve a logistics problem for Ice Alaska. It would also give the borough a major tenant for the Tanana Lakes Recreation Area.

Ice Alaska chairman Dick Brickley said if things come together, organizers could begin hosting the annual carving championships south of town in 2011.

“We could make it a winter wonderland,” Brickley said.

Under the deal, the nonprofit Ice Alaska would build a new home base in Tanana Lakes and develop a 30-plus-acre slice of the 750-acre recreation area, which takes up a huge tract of land north of the Tanana River. The borough would own the building and Ice Alaska would run it and a connecting RV park as a community service.

Mayor Jim Whitaker said he has offered the nonprofit a 30-year lease in the park for a nominal fee of $1 a year, a move that will require approval from the Borough Assembly. The assembly could formally review the lease later this month or in April.

The borough’s Parks and Recreation Department has worked with volunteers and contractors to clean up the blighted Tanana Lakes site, an area that had become an unauthorized graveyard for hundreds of abandoned cars and trucks. A 2007 master plan set up an alternative vision for the area, one that would preserve the natural bird habitat while leaving the property available for skiing, hiking, snowmachining, bicycling, boating, ice fishing and other summer and winter uses.

The borough hopes the introduction of positive activities like the ice carving championships is one way to reverse the area’s fortunes.

“The best way to get there, in terms of what it can be, is to use it. Ice Alaska is a good usage,” Whitaker said. “It’s a positive thing for them and it’s a positive thing for the community.”

Under the deal with Ice Alaska, Tanana Lakes would almost certainly see plenty of ice sculpting fans.

A steady stream of customers crossed the front gate at the sculpting championship’s current site — on Alaska Railroad Corp. property just north of downtown Fairbanks between Phillips Field Road and the Chena River — during a half-hour stretch early Sunday afternoon. Brickley said 45,000 visitors have made the trek to the Ice Park this winter. Multiple trips by season ticket-holders are included in the figure. Things were busy enough Sunday that organizers, who had originally planned to close the event today, will instead stay open through the coming weekend, he said.

The nonprofit began looking for a new home one year ago after word from the railroad came that its rent would double, an increase driven by a requirement that railroad-owned land be leased at fair market value — a price he said would make Ice Alaska’s site unaffordable.

Brickley said Ice Alaska has about half the money needed for a $4 million, three-story structure at Tanana Lakes. The money came from the Alaska Legislature, and Brickley said the rest would need to come from a fundraising drive.

Brickley said he hopes a new building will allow the nonprofit to house visiting sculptors — and save it from shelling out $40,000 a year to put artists up in hotel rooms.

“The artists love staying on site. It saves them so much time ... they come here to work,” he said, adding that the rooms could be rented to construction workers in the summer.

Brickley said Ice Alaska has an annual budget of $700,000 but runs with only one paid employee, relying largely on a 400-person-strong volunteer force. He said the nonprofit would hope to stay at its current site until a move is complete.

Brickley said Ice Alaska’s current site has plenty of benefits, such as access to existing water, power and sewer lines. But he said the Tanana Lakes site has other advantages, including tall trees — which shield the annual carving championship’s massive ice sculptures from the sun — and plenty of room to expand in case the event grows in popularity.

Brickley said the move would not change the nonprofit’s long-term plan, which includes increasing full-time staff from one to five and establishing a major cash prize for winners of the championships.

The nonprofit also looked at other potential sites, including one in North Pole, but decided a site close to the city of Fairbanks would work best.

“That could just be a recreation area 365 days. It could just be spectacular,” Brickley said of Tanana Lakes.