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WILKES-BARRE TWP. &#8212; Plans to expand the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza switched on from off Wednesday as the board overseeing the facility rejected bids for a concourse-level pub and then gave the go-ahead to negotiate a deal to design it with changes.Dave Palermo, chairman of the Luzerne County Convention Center Authority, walked the authority&#8217;s board members through the process to continue with the scaled-down expansion, based on additional costs to be factored into the project.The bids for the &#8220;club pub&#8221; to be used exclusively by club seat members came in too high last month, Palermo said at the authority&#8217;s regularly scheduled public meeting. On top of that, vendor Chickie&#8217;s &amp; Pete&#8217;s occupies the space for the pub and has to be relocated, he said.Palermo added that he had conferred with others, including Angelo Answini, chairman of the board&#8217;s construction committee, who advocated combining the relocation and design costs as part of a new package. The original design by Quad 3 architects and engineers in Wilkes-Barre did not include the move, he said.&#8220;It&#8217;s Angelo&#8217;s professional opinion that we put it out as one big bid. We should see a lot better price come back to us because there&#8217;s more opportunity for companies to make a profit,&#8221; Palermo said.After the board voted to reject the bids, it authorized paying Quad 3 no more than $28,750 to provide professional design and construction management services for the new combined project.The smaller project would leave a good portion of the remaining $3.5 million in bond funds issued for capital improvements at the facility that opened in 1999.Donna Cupinski, chairman of the future directions committee, said the board, along with arena manager SMG, has had a list of capital improvement projects. &#8220;It changed quite rapidly as our needs changed,&#8221; she said.Cupinski prioritized the projects beginning with Phase I of the &#8220;club pub,&#8221; the relocation of Chickie&#8217;s &amp; Pete&#8217;s, the purchase of a trailer for the parking office and acoustical upgrades.&#8220;The reason why we have them done in phases is we don&#8217;t want to commit to a whole lot of projects and then find out we&#8217;re over budget and don&#8217;t have money to complete some of them,&#8221; she said.The authority received a $100,000 for acoustical panels through a Local Share Account state grant, funded by gambling revenues from the Mohegan Sun Pocono casino in nearby Plains Township. The authority rejected the bids for that project after contractors failed to meet the bidding specifications.Cupinski said it might be better to re-bid them at the same time as the project to strengthen the steel grid system listed in the Phase II improvements. The structural changes would allow the arena to bring in acts with heavier equipment loads hung from the steel grid.&#8220;(The acoustical upgrade) would go hand in hand with the steel grid reinforcement,&#8221; Cupinski said.Other projects include hiring an ice floor expert to do an assessment and make recommendations, rebuilding the chillers for the ice floor and the building as well as patching, repairing and painting lines in the parking lot.<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Jerry Lynottjlynott@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott</shirttailMeta></div>

Convention center authority puts Mohegan Sun Arena expansion back on track