Acquisition of Mat Maid properties hits snags

PALMER — Between a fire, possible contamination and asking prices well above their assessed values, the city’s efforts to buy the various properties in the old Matanuska Maid campus has hit quite a few snags.

“Every parcel has a story, and unfortunately it hasn’t been a great story,” Palmer City Manager Doug Griffin said.

By the narrowest of margins in October 2010, the city won approval from voters to sell $3.3 million in bonds and buy the land that includes the city’s iconic water tower and various other parcels on the block bounded by Valley Way, Dogwood Avenue, Denali Street and Dahlia Avenue.

The block is one of the few remaining parcels containing unused buildings in the city. The idea was to snap it all up and build something like a convention center or a home for city nonprofits. So far in the process, the city has commissioned appraisals of the properties and taken them to the individual property owners.

“We had initial meetings with all the seven property owners and they all thought that the appraisal was not to their liking,” Griffin said.

Well, that’s not quite true. One property, the smallest one on the block and currently home to a bookstore, is in the middle of a purchase agreement for that appraised value.

“We have made a couple of $5,000 payments,” Griffin said, but “we can still back out.”

Another parcel, the one with the water tower, has likely seen its value altered since the appraisals were completed. In August, the old Matanuska Maid warehouse building burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances. The building had been boarded up without electricity or gas running to it and no other obvious ignition source. No one has been arrested, but police are still on the case.

“The Mat Maid fire is still under investigation and Det. Sgt. (Shayne) LaCroix is still working on that,” Cmdr. Lance Ketterling with the Palmer Police Department said when reached Wednesday. “We don’t have any new information to release.”

Griffin said the owner of the property, Anchorage attorney Bill Ingaldson, didn’t like the city’s offer to pay the appraised value and has been slow in getting back to the city with a counter offer.

Even the parcel owned by the state — at a little over 3 acres it’s the biggest chunk of the block, in fact — has run into a snag.

The parcel is the property of the state’s Agricultural Revolving Loan Fund and has been on the market for two years or more with an asking price of $975,000.

“I have a little bit of consternation about the city of Palmer paying the state of Alaska money for land,” Griffin said.

Palmer, unlike most municipal organizations in the state, was created before statehood. Since it was created so early, it didn’t end up getting any state land when it incorporated, unlike some of its younger neighbors.

Griffin said he looked at the possibility of a land swap in lieu of a purchase, but the revolving loan fund wasn’t interested. So, he’s pursuing other options.

“It is a fairly low priority, but in our legislative priorities we actually ask for $975,000 from the state to give to us to turn right back around and give back to them,” Griffin said.

And then there are a couple of businesses — the storage company on the southwest corner and Crowley Petroleum Distribution on the northwest — whose owners don’t seem interested in moving.

“We haven’t really gotten a specific counter offer from Crowley,” Griffin said. “It sounds like it would be expensive for them to move and they’re not interested in moving.”

Finally, there’s the issue of contamination. Griffin said that when the land was agricultural, it was treated with herbicides and pesticides. Later in its life it was used as a garage. Griffin said the city hasn’t yet been able to study the issue more thoroughly than looking into its past uses. It could be that any contaminants broke down over time and are no longer an issue.

But the city thinks the property has some contamination and needs to be prepared to possibly have to do some remediation. So the city is working with state and federal agencies to figure out if it can get support with those efforts.

If there’s a silver lining, though, it’s that in 2015 the city will have paid off the debt it entered into in order to build its golf course. With that debt gone, the city will be more able to take on the $3.3 million to buy these properties.

Meanwhile, Griffin said, the city will “try to get people more excited about the city of Palmer and its efforts to get the properties and bring them under single ownership.”

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.