City on lookout

for new office space

June 13, 2006

By DAWN DE BUSK/Frontiersman

PALMER - To acquire more office space near an increasingly crowded City Hall, Palmer plans to review the possibility of a land exchange with the Salvation Army sometime this month, according to Palmer City Manager Tom Healy.

Already, an appraiser has priced an undeveloped parcel owned by the city and located west of the juvenile detention center along Inner Springer Loop. Healy would not reveal the amount of the appraisal until the second one is done.

Currently, the appraiser is reviewing the lot where the Salvation Army Church and Food Bank building now sits on 535 W. Evergreen Ave., directly next to City Hall. Healy said Friday he anticipates the second appraisal should be completed in a week or two.

&#8220The spirit of this is it would be an equal value exchange,” Healy said, adding the party with the property worth less would add cash to the land trade.

&#8220We have no definite plans for it. But one of the issues as we expand is that the existing City Hall is getting crowded in terms of capacity for offices, the council chambers and storage space.”

The city looked at the old school district administration building as an option at one time, Healy said.

Meanwhile, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly added to the 2007 budget $1.5 million for the Public Works Department to renovate the building, which has been standing vacant in downtown Palmer for years.

On June 6, Mayor Tim Anderson tried to veto the item from the budget, but the assembly disagreed with Anderson's proposal to spread the cost over a three-year period.

Assembly member Betty Vehrs, who said she remembered when the present borough building was constructed to house the expanding government departments, said she favors consolidated office space for borough employees as well as Valley residents.

&#8220I feel that the more unified employees who work for the borough are, the better,” Vehrs said. &#8220The satellite office sounds good, but they develop their own culture.”

Contact Dawn De Busk at 352-2252, or dawn.debusk@ frontiersman.com.