Anchorage would trade away land it bought five years ago for $2.35 million

Anchorage would give up nearly 10 acres it spent $2.35 million to finish buying five years ago, in a trade heading to public hearing Sept. 15.

The former Tozier Track, in the U-Med District near Tudor Road, would go to the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation for residential development. In return the city would get four downtown parcels in Block 102, about 1.6 acres near West 8th Avenue and D Street. The downtown land appraises higher, $5.24 million against Tozier's $4.125 million, and no money changes hands to close the roughly $1.1 million gap, which runs in the city's favor.

Getting the Tozier land was a municipal goal for decades. It appears in the 1985 Far North Bicentennial Park plan and the 2007 3500 Tudor Road Master Plan, and the Heritage Land Bank finally acquired it in 2021 through an exchange with the Alaska Sled Dog Racing Association, paying $2.35 million on top of the land it gave up.

The city's own study of what the parcel should become is not finished.

The deal is also structured in a way that avoids competitive bidding. Under land bank rules, an outright sale would have to go to open bid at fair market value. An exchange only has to be on "at least an equal value basis," which the higher-appraised downtown block satisfies. The trade is not authorized in the adopted 2026 work program or the five-year management plan, both of which contemplate only evaluating the parcel. The same measure amends the work program to allow it.

The state has objected. If the Tozier land is transferred and redeveloped for housing, an Alaska Department of Transportation planner wrote in July, it "would likely preclude or substantially limit the feasibility of reestablishing these previously planned transportation projects" — a shelved Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue extension and connections to Piper and Grumman streets. The municipality's own right-of-way reviewers raised no objection.

Four conditions attach if it goes through: at least 70 percent of one site developed as housing, a minimum of eight dwelling units per acre, Block 102 placed in the land bank's inventory, and any profits from it returned to the land bank fund.

The measure authorizes the exchange only. It does not rezone anything or approve a development agreement.

Written comment and phone sign-up are open through 5 pm Sept. 14.