Juneau Assembly votes 6-3 to sell old City Hall to Sealaska Heritage Institute

Juneau's old City Hall will go to Sealaska Heritage Institute for no less than $1.5 million, after the Assembly chose a negotiated sale over putting the property out for bid.

Members had two ordinances in front of them Monday, Aug. 17. One would have sought sealed bids with a $2.5 million minimum. The other authorized a direct sale to the institute, which had made the offer. The Assembly adopted the negotiated sale 6-3 and never took up the competing measure. Nano Brooks, Neil Steininger and Greg Smith voted no.

What the building is worth is not established. The city has not had it appraised, and several residents who testified urged it to get an appraisal before selling. The $2.5 million was a minimum the Assembly had set for an auction, not a valuation.

Steininger objected to the method rather than the buyer, and framed his objection conditionally. If the building is worth $2.5 million, he said, "we're spending $1 million by selling it for $1.5 million." Brooks and Smith pointed to the city's depleted fund balance and its recurring deficit.

Mayor Beth Weldon said she had found no other interested buyer, and that a sale would not fix the underlying problem either way. "If we get money for this, it would be one-time money," she said, against a structural deficit and $7 to $8 million the city still has to find.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a tribal nonprofit founded in 1980 to sustain Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures in Southeast Alaska, and it already operates an arts campus near the site. It plans a new mixed-use facility there, a roughly $40 million project it expects to spend the next four years raising money for.

Most of the residents who testified backed the sale. Juneau expects to occupy the building until spring 2027.