Anchorage would sell rights over its City Hall lot below appraisal

The city wants to sell the right to keep part of the City Hall parking lot empty — and for $80,000 less than the strip is worth.

Under an ordinance the Anchorage Assembly takes up Tuesday, two private companies would pay the municipality $200,000 for a permanent easement barring any building on a narrow strip along the east edge of the lot, off 7th Avenue. A 2025 appraisal valued it at about $280,000.

The buyers, 626 F St., LLC and Seventh & F, LLC, own neighboring property. Rather than buying the land, they would buy a guarantee that the city never builds on that strip, so they can build closer to their own property line and still meet fire-separation code. In effect, they would pay to keep the city's lot open to unlock their own development.

No project has been filed. The mayor's administration, which submitted the measure, calls it a way to remove "one of the redevelopment obstacles" for the neighbors and to advance its priority of revitalizing downtown. There are safeguards: the city keeps using the strip for parking, driveways or landscaping, and the easement dissolves if the owners don't start construction within five years.