Anchorage weighs $470,000 no-bid sale of Government Hill lot

Chugach Electric Association would take outright ownership of a municipal lot on Government Hill for $470,000, without the city taking bids. A broker valued the property at $519,000 in June, which puts the negotiated price about 9 percent below that.

The lot runs 8,125 square feet on Hollywood Drive at Elm Street and once held Fire Station No. 2. Chugach already leases space there through August 2030 for a communications tower and equipment. The municipality's memorandum says the site carries fiber to Chugach substations and the land mobile radio coverage downtown crews rely on, and that moving it would be expensive and operationally risky.

The administration recommends taking the lower figure, pointing to the age and condition of the building on the site and the possibility that the ground needs environmental remediation. Municipal code permits the city to sell land through direct negotiation rather than competitive bidding, and the notice does not say why bids were not sought. An agency review that began in March drew no objections.

The transfer of title is what separates this from the Chugach ordinances the Assembly handled earlier in the summer. Those covered Russian Jack Springs Park, Ira Walker Park and the North Star School site off Blueberry Road, and each granted an easement letting the utility bury lines while the land stayed municipal. The Real Estate Department, under director Tiffany Briggs, sponsored all of them.

Separately, a resolution from Assembly Chair Anna Brawley and Member Erin Baldwin Day comes up Sept. 1 that would have the city weigh housing units and affordability ahead of price when it sells land. At an Aug. 28 work session, Baldwin Day said the municipality has no prioritized list of the kinds of housing it wants its own land to produce.