PROVO — If Olympic organizers want The Peaks Ice Arena upgraded for the 2002 Games, they will have to pay for it, arena manager Max Rabner says.
Rabner is balking at the Salt Lake Organizing Committee's demands for management to pay for heating, lighting and floor improvements.
Rabner contends Seven Peaks Management, which runs and leases the $12 million arena owned by the city-county Ice Sheet Authority, is not responsible for the work under the venue agreement between the Ice Authority and SLOC.
"We are trying to resolve these financial issues in a responsible manner. If we can't, we'll fight it out later," Rabner's attorney, Richard Allen, said after a closed-door meeting with Ice Authority members Wednesday.
Grant Thomas, SLOC vice president over venues and transportation, said SLOC will get the work done now and the sides will settle matters later.
"The Ice Sheet Authority and management are responsible," he said. "But we don't have a lot of time left until the Games. So we'll go ahead and do what needs to be done to get the arena ready and go through a resolution-dispute process later."
SLOC wants additional heating and cooling units installed to keep 8,500 spectators comfortable during Olympic hockey games. The Peaks' current seating capacity is 2,500.
Olympic organizers also want more lighting to meet the needs of international broadcasters and the carpeting in locker rooms replaced with special flooring for hockey skates.
Provo Economic Development Director Leland Gamette, who heads the Venue Oversight Committee that Olympic organizers created last month to bypass Rabner and prepare the arena, said his group is too busy to worry about who will pay and for what.
"Our charge is to make sure everything (at the Peaks) is done so we can be ready for the Games," Gamette said.
And progress has been made, he said. A faulty $170,000 refrigeration unit that cools the ice could be fixed by mid-October. The chiller has been a problem for more than a year.