Sports complex opens on contested land

Legal mix-up causes confusion among Wasilla officials

By DANIEL SPOTH-Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA -- Despite months of successful planning and construction and an opening extravaganza that wowed Valley residents of all ages, the new Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex's woes aren't resolved quite yet.

A close inspection of the tax records of Gary Lundgren, the Virgin Islands-based realtor who owns a parcel of land adjacent to the complex, and who previously owned the land the complex now occupies, revealed that the transfer of land from Lundgren to the city was never properly entered into city records, and thus Lundgren still retains legal ownership of the property in the eyes of many city officials. Wasilla holds a court order stating that the city owns the sports complex land; however, since the order was never recorded, not all of the city's branches acknowledge the ownership.

"It's unbelievable that they built a $17 million stadium on land they don't even own," Lundgren said after receiving the news that some city offices believed he still owned the land.

This pratfall caps a long and turbulent series of legal troubles over the status of the land parcel, troubles that originally arose in 1998, when both the city of Wasilla and Lundgren were negotiating with the nonprofit Nature Conservancy to purchase parcels for development of the complex and an airport industrial park, respectively. Lundgren eventually bought the land, and was soon after sued by the city, which claimed that it had a prior contract with the Nature Conservancy.

In the long and costly legal battle that followed, a U.S. District Judge awarded the contested land to Lundgren. Before the entire court battle could play out, however, the city possessed 70 acres of the 150 bought by Lundgren under eminent domain, which allows a municipality to take ownership of private land for public use, after paying a fair market price for the land in question. Lundgren complied with this ruling, and construction of the complex proceeded.

However, it seems that this transfer was never registered with the recorder's office by Wasilla's attorneys, and the land was thus never officially conveyed to the city.

"If you just file it away and never record it, the ownership is never transferred," Lundgren said.

Part of the problem is that Wasilla needs to rely upon an external subdivision agency, the Mat-Su Borough Platting Office, to complete the deal.

"The borough never fixed the plat," said Wasilla Mayor Dianne M. Keller, who believes that the recent mix-up is "just a minor technical glitch."

However, Paul Hulbert with the borough platting office believes that the ball isn't in his court.

"This thing has been sitting on my desk for a while," he said. "There's no hold-up here. The city's got to work it out on their own."

Hulbert also said that the title company handling the land transfer hadn't acknowledged the lot's change of hands, but the title company itself places the blame back upon the city's failure to record the action.

The practical upshot of this confusion is that, at the time of the last title report, Lundgren still officially owned the land that the complex now sits upon, and thus is still being charged property taxes on those 70 acres. In fact, it was his most recent tax statement that informed Lundgren of his persistent claim to the lot.

"I got my tax bill from the city and noticed it was for the total parcel," he said.

Lundgren is amused by the amount of controversy and legal fumbling that the land case continues to present even now, almost five years after the actual dispute.

"This whole thing has just been a comedy of errors," he said. "This could've been handled in a week or even a day."

Contact Daniel Spoth at daniel.spoth@frontiersman.com.