Wasilla to buy shopping center for expanded library

WASILLA — The city is planning to buy the Meta Rose Square as the future home for the Wasilla Public Library, a move that has shocked both the library steering committee and the shopping center’s tenants.

Wasilla has signed a purchase agreement to pay $1.5 million for the indoor shopping center in the heart of downtown, Public Works Director Archie Giddings said. The city will convert the building from its current retail configuration into a library 2.5 times larger than the current building.

The money for the project will come entirely from the city’s coffers, but Giddings said it was determined the city could pay for the building without drawing its reserve fund below the amount legally required.

The city administration presented the plan to city council in a Nov. 9 executive session. Councilwoman Leone Harris, who said the city has long been looking for a new building for the library, said the council jumped on the opportunity, directing the administration to move forward with the plan.

“When somebody calls up and says, ‘Hey, I have this building. Do you want to buy it?’ (and) at such a good price, you don’t want to wait around while someone else snatches it up from underneath you,” Harris said.

The asking price is $500,000 below the building’s assessed value, Giddings said. The owners, Harold and June DeArmoun, offered the city a reduced price with conditions that the entire building be used as a public library and Meta Rose remains somewhere in the name, Giddings said.

Councilwoman Nancy Hall said the council unanimously voted to go ahead with the contract.

“The existing library is way too small,” Hall said. “The land available to build a new building isn’t exactly in the downtown core area. The (Meta Rose) building is there. It’s in the downtown core. It definitely keeps people coming. And it has parking.”

That the library’s current building is insufficient is nothing new. A steering committee composed of three city officials and four local residents was created in 2008 to examine the library’s challenges and potential solutions.

The language of the ordinance creating the committee cited its expressed purpose as “gathering information and making recommendations to the City Council concerning the construction or acquisition of a building to house the city library and other cultural services.”

Yet, said committee member Annette Andres, the steering committee was never contacted about any plans regarding the Meta Rose. Members were not asked their opinions and never had a chance to discuss it, she said.

“We still have not been formally informed,” Andres said.

Even before the committee was created, Andres said community members have spent years gathering information, applying for grants and determining the Wasilla’s needs. The Friends of the Wasilla Library have been working to this end for eight years. And yet, she said, that group did not receive word of the city’s plan until Monday.

Andres said other organizations have been involved with efforts to get a new building for the library. Now, not only does this latest development potentially jeopardize the relationship with the Rasmuson Foundation and future grants through that charitable group, it also leaves Valley Performing Arts and its plans for a joint library/theather facility out of the picture, she said.

“To not even have been asked, ‘Do you think this would be a good purpose for this building?’ It borders not only on insult and the lack of due diligence seeming to be not wise, but it also doesn’t bode well for the level of maturity of our city nor the seriousness with which we should be taking into account these decisions,” Andres said.

Giddings, who is one of the city’s representatives on the library steering committee, said the time frame was too condensed to bring the purchase up to the committee. The $500,000-off deal was only good through the end of this year, he said, as capital gains taxes are set to increase in 2010 and the DeArmouns wanted to sell before then.

While there was no time to give the committee notice, Giddings said the city has promised existing tenants more than a year before they need to find new locations.

“We are going to give them until the end of next Christmas until we start making the transition,” Giddings said.

While the temporary stay on eviction is nice, the tenants of Wasilla’s only indoor shopping mall said they were shocked by the news.

“I was sort of blindsided, or shocked,” said Flowers by Louise owner Louis Davis. “We all knew the DeArmouns had discussed selling it before, but we all assumed it would be to somebody else who would keep it as retail space.”

Davis has been at the Meta Rose for more than 20 years and attributes her success to the foot traffic of the location and spill-over from other businesses in the center. Now, faced with the prospect of moving, Davis is uncertain about where she goes from here.

“I don’t have a clue,” she said. “Obviously, I’ve got to do some thinking about it and praying about it. Hopefully, God will smack me on the head trying to tell me something.”

All I Saw Cookware has been at the Meta Rose since it was constructed, owner David Nyberg said. Like Davis, Nyberg said being in the only “quasi-mall” in Wasilla has allowed him to be successful. He is not pleased with the prospect of getting kicked out, but understands the reasoning and rights of the owners.

“When we are forced to leave, we will either find a new place or do other things,” he said. “We haven’t made any decisions. We are just going to take it calm and get though this Christmas. The first of the year, we will start to think about what we’re going to do.”

The money to buy the building still has to go through the city’s appropriation process, Giddings said. There will be an ordinance introduced at the next city council meeting on Nov. 24, and a public hearing will follow two weeks later.

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.

For more on this story, see the Friday edition of the Frontiersman.