Anchorage School Board votes to raze Abbott Loop, return Westpark on a nonbinding pledge

The Anchorage School Board voted 6-1 Tuesday to spend $3.96 million in leftover bond money tearing down the closed Abbott Loop Elementary and to hand three properties back to the city, counting on an Assembly pledge, which is not binding, to send the district the money from selling one of them.

The three are Abbott Loop, which the city would take once the building is gone; the closed Campbell STEM Elementary; and Westpark, a vacant 41.84-acre tract in West Anchorage set aside for a future school, southeast of Lucy Street and West 80th Avenue. The city wants to sell Westpark for housing. District enrollment "has been declining for over 10 years, and there is no current projected need for new school buildings," the administration's memo says.

The Anchorage Assembly voted 11-1 on Oct. 6 for a resolution, AR 2026-292, stating its intent to give the district the net proceeds of a Westpark sale "to the maximum extent allowable" once the district submits a supplemental budget. The resolution states it "does not constitute a binding appropriation, conveyance, or waiver of legal rights." Susanne Fleek-Green, chief of staff to Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, told the board the city aims to have an appraisal before year's end and a sale early in 2027.

Board member Rachel Blakeslee said she wanted the deal made conditional on the district actually getting the money. "Without that guarantee, it feels a little risky," she said. Asked whether a future Assembly could redirect the proceeds, Fleek-Green said the sale should close before the Assembly's membership changes much, and that reversing course would take new action. "I think that would be a high bar," she said. Blakeslee voted yes.

The $3.96 million comes from a bond voters approved years ago to put a fire suppression system in Abbott Loop, said Jim Anderson, the district's chief operating officer. The project drew no bidders, and the school later closed. Charter schools used the building under fire marshal waivers, but the district no longer has one to use it as a school, he said. The money is no longer enough for even a scaled-back fire suppression system, he said.

Anderson said the mayor's team asked the district to use that money to demolish the building because the city "didn't have the funds to either demo or renovate it." The building sits vacant and is "only degrading at this point," he said. Fleek-Green said the city does not want to take on an additional capital expense.

Board member Paul McDonogh said the board closed Abbott Loop in 2022 after extensive town halls, when a consultant said it was consistently on the possible demolition list because of "runaway repair costs." Board member Margo Bellamy called demolition "the most fiscal and responsible decision to make."

Pat Higgins cast the lone no vote. He said schools are at or near full capacity, that the Abbott Loop Community Council hadn't fully signed on and that the district hadn't considered using the building for administrative functions. He said he was not arguing to keep the school, but "this thing's shoved through without that community engagement." Fleek-Green said the city will meet with nearby community councils on the lot's future once the district acts, as it is doing for Campbell STEM.

Anderson told the board earlier this month that the path discussed with the mayor's team was demolition in spring, as Alaska News reported Oct. 6. In December 2025, the board had voted 6-1 to remove Abbott Loop demolition from the third year of its capital plan.

A state cap on local contributions limits how much of a sale could reach the district's operating fund, said Katie Parrott, a district finance administrator. Money over the cap could go to capital projects, "student nutrition, transportation" and activities, she said.

The Heritage Land Bank Advisory Commission meets Thursday to consider recommending that the city give up any claim to about 2 acres of Westpark, according to the commission's meeting packet. The city's land bank sold that piece to the district in 2009 for $475,000, with a condition that it return to the land bank if the board declared it excess. The Assembly resolution says it intends to notify the Sand Lake Community Council and hold a public hearing before approving a sale.