Mayor: Borough shop has to go

WASILLA — The Mat-Su Borough’s maintenance shop in the heart of downtown has got to go, the city’s mayor says.

Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright has asked the borough at least twice to consider moving out of its aging maintenance facility across the street from the big downtown fire station 6-1.

“Main Street in Wasilla is no longer the place for Billy Bob’s Car and Truck Garage,” Rupright said. “It jams up traffic; it’s not big enough; it’s not a good mechanic’s shop.”

He has big plans for the area. He’d like Wasilla to have something other towns often take for granted: a downtown district. Wasilla’s would be centered around where the Dorothy Page Museum is now and incorporate all the historic buildings there, including the old Teeland’s store. The smaller buildings could be rented out to artists and crafters. Rupright said he’s already working to get a blacksmith in the old smithy to sell trinkets and do demonstrations in the summer.

The museum could be used as a meeting hall or a place to hold things like outdoor summer concerts or weddings.

“A lot of the old-timers in Wasilla were married in that building,” he said.

But the block is cramped and Rupright needs the space where the garage is to spread things out.

“The garage on the block; it’s kind of old, it’s unsightly,” he said. “We need that area to finish the core of a downtown walking district plan.”

Wasilla isn’t going to evict the borough. Really, Rupright said, that would be difficult, seeing as how the borough is only 10 years in on a 30-year lease on the property.

“It’s been slow. Any heat I can put on them, the more the merrier,” Rupright said. “They’re holding up the city of Wasilla. I told them that the other night.”

For its part, the borough doesn’t disagree. Vacating that building is in their plans as well.

Dennis Brodigan, director of emergency services for the borough, said the shop is the one his department uses to fix up ambulances and fire trucks. But while borough fire trucks have gotten bigger and bigger over the years, the garage has stayed the same size.

Over the past five years or so, he said, pretty much every conceivable option for a new facility has been explored. The one that seems to have the most traction currently, he said, is for the borough to consolidate its maintenance services. Right now, emergency services has its own shop, but so does the department of public works and the school district.

If the shops were consolidated, Brodigan said, the borough could benefit from some economies of scale, but they could also possibly generate revenue doing maintenance work for municipalities.

But the thing standing in the way is, unsurprisingly, money. The borough, he said, has to be frugal with the taxpayers’ dollars. And a project on this order has to be completed carefully.

“We’re at the stage where we need either to purchase a facility and renovate it or have one built from scratch,” Brodigan said. “Either prospect is relatively expensive.”

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