Borough offices may be on the move

Considering it takes $400,000 to $500,000 per year in maintenance to keep the borough headquarters in Palmer in proper shape, it’s no wonder the assembly is looking around for real estate.

The crux is that the current building is bulging with employees and as the maintenance costs indicate, it needs a lot of annual pampering.

Assembly Member Michelle Church said the current building, built in 1937, is too old and too small. She twice intimated during Tuesday afternoon’s special meeting that building a new headquarters should be considered. The current building is about 54,000 square feet and officials think they need up to 20,000 more square feet. Most of Church’s colleagues, and Borough Manager John Duffy, don’t think the taxpayers would be willing to approve a bond to build a new 74,000-square-foot building to replace the old schoolhouse and gym. The 5,000-square-foot gym, in fact, might become office space if other plans don’t work out.

So the assembly voted Tuesday to hire a real estate professional to look for 10,000 to 20,000 square feet of space so they can send some employees packing to new digs. The Realtor would look for these options: renting existing space, buying new space, renting to own new space or building a space to specifications.

One other point of discussion during the meeting came from members representing the west and northern parts of the core area. They think it would be nice if an off-site office is opened, it should be where lots of Valley people live so they don’t have to drive to Palmer to get simple paperwork accomplished.

Cindy Bettine, who represents people in the west end, agreed with that notion, but noted Rob Wells, who was absent, would likely fight a move that appeared to diminish Palmer as the center of government.

The assembly apparently already has its eye on the Owens Inspection building just outside of Palmer proper. It has 12,000 square feet the borough employees could move into nearly immediately.

Plus, the assembly apparently has $1 million in reserve that would cover a significant portion of the $1.5 million sale price. And the assembly has the old school administration building in downtown Palmer that has been vacant for years. If it were refurbished or sold that could generate some income to cover at least part of the other $500,000, and Palmer would be minus an eyesore.

Finally, if there is so much demand for platting or planning or that kind of thing that an office needs to be located in the west end of the Valley, then why doesn’t a private company wise up and open an office that can access that kind of information and sell it? Alaska Tags and Title is a perfect example of a private company working with a government entity to register vehicles and other services. Why not Plat Maps R Us? It would create a few jobs and serve the people while keeping the center of government relatively intact.