Church Builds Huge Sports Dome to Meet Community Need

Orginally published on Thursday, December 21, 2006 at 12:59 PM
by Todd Rhoades

Here’s a story about a unique thing that’s happening in Anchorage, AK.  Love to hear your input on this and the effect you think it might have on their community as a church…

The inflatable sports dome that’s about to change Anchorage’s skyline is already a hub of aerobic exercise.

Pull. Tug. Stretch. Repeat.

Before any baseballs can be thrown or soccer balls can be kicked inside the giant white dome off Raspberry Road, dozens of workers must complete a task worthy of Sisyphus.

They spent four or five days last week unfolding, stretching and connecting the 10 pieces of slippery vinyllike material that will make up the dome’s canopy. This week they’ve moved on to a new activity: shoveling. Before the dome can be inflated, all of the snow that buried the canopy on Monday must be removed.

Each canopy piece weighs 10,000 pounds. To unfold them, workers played tug-of-war with ropes rigged to the panels and pulled and tugged until they were stretched flat atop a 170,000-square-foot space that will become the dome’s floor.

A webcam on site is recording the work, but watching it—either on a computer or in person—is a bit like watching a glacier retreat. You know something is happening because you’ve been told so, but after an hour’s time, things look about the same.

“It’s a huge project. Everything is physical. There’s not a lot of heavy equipment that can be (used),’’ said volunteer laborer Michael Friess, who has spent much of the last week working as a dome grunt. “It’s a lot of pushing and pulling and tugging,’’

When it opens this spring, the dome will be three times the size of the city’s other dome, the Tanglewood Lakes Golf Club and Dome. Bob Klein, who runs the golf dome, said the structures are practically disaster-proof. If someone shot a bullet into the canopy, “you wouldn’t even know it,’’ he said.

Given that a kook once shot holes in the Alaska pipeline, that’s good to know.

A daylong snowstorm halted plans to inflate the 100,000-pound canopy Monday, forcing workers to blow snow instead of air. On Tuesday afternoon, they were still piling snow onto giant tarps to clear the canopy. Once the snow is cleared and the wind stops blowing, it’ll take about four hours to inflate the whole thing.

The dome’s numbers are staggering: It covers an area about 600 feet long and 300 feet wide (170,000 square feet)—or about five times the size of Sullivan Arena (32,000 square feet). Ten thousand nuts and bolts connect the pieces of canopy. Inside will be the only 400-meter indoor track in North America—indoor tracks are typically 300 meters—and an enormous expanse of artificial turf that will accommodate soccer, baseball, softball and other sports.

But the most extraordinary part of the dome is the force behind it.

It isn’t a federal, state or city project. It’s the mega-project of a mega-church.

ChangePoint, a nondenominational Christian church next to the dome, is spearheading the project and will oversee management of the $12.5 million facility, which will be called the SportsDome at ChangePoint.

About 4,000 people attend ChangePoint each Sunday. Chris Keffalos, director of the church’s outreach programs, said the sports dome is a way for the huge congregation to reach out to the city.

“Large churches have more resources,’’ he said, “and we don’t want to take those resources and keep them to ourselves. We want to reach out to our town in a big way. We listen to what the community needs, and it doesn’t necessarily need to have a spiritual component.’’

A nonprofit group called Anchorage Sportsplex Inc., was formed and sold bonds to finance the project. Users—many of which, like UAA and the Anchorage School District, have already committed to renting space—will pay fees that will help pay off the bonds and maintain the facility.

SOURCE:  The Anchorage Daily News
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/8506650p-8399833c.html

For Discussion:  So… what are your thoughts?

Friess, a non-church-member who coaches track and field at UAA and intends to turn the dome into his team’s off-campus home, believes the church will be a good steward.

“They’re not going to take the profits and start buying Mercedes, you know?’’ he said. “This is the most public private facility you can have.’’

ChangePoint is showing Alaskans that we don’t need to rely on federal or state money to build pet projects. And we don’t need to attend its church to play in its backyard.

“Not everyone who goes to Notre Dame is Catholic,’’ Friess said. “No one’s gonna have to put their hand in the holy water and say three Hail Marys when they walk through the door.’’

But you might want to leave the trash talk outside.

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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.

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