Anchorage Assembly weighs new police SUVs and an off-market firehouse sale

Two spending-and-property questions land before the Anchorage Assembly on Aug. 4: a $1.88 million police vehicle purchase and the no-bid sale of a former fire station the city has owned since Eisenhower was president.

The bigger-ticket item retires 27 high-mileage police SUVs in a single buy. The vehicles — mostly patrol units, plus a K-9 SUV, six sergeant vehicles and three unmarked commander SUVs — are Dodge Durango pursuit models the city says have aged out on mileage and failure rates, and they replace worn-out cars rather than growing the fleet. The savings are in how the city shops: buying through a State of Alaska contract shaves about $9,000 off each vehicle versus retail — close to a quarter-million dollars across the order.

The second item is a piece of Anchorage history. The city wants to sell 921 Hollywood Drive on Government Hill — home to Fire Station No. 2 until the late 1980s — for $470,000, roughly $49,000 under a broker's June valuation. Rather than put it out for bid, the city negotiated directly with the buyer already there: Chugach Electric, which leases the site through 2030 for a communications tower carrying fiber to substations and radio coverage for downtown crews. Chugach found relocating that equipment would bring cost and engineering risk, and the city says offloading the aging building sheds maintenance and liability it no longer wants. Real Estate Services called the below-valuation price fair given the building's age, condition and possible environmental review.

Both come up at the Assembly's Aug. 4 meeting, which takes public testimony.