Unwanted Offer

PALMER — Two possible tenants for the old Fred Meyer building have sparked a debate over guns and the role of city government in Downtown Palmer. With two known offers on the building from Valkyrie Security and Asset Protection and U-Haul, residents have begun picking sides in internet debates over who wants what. All these debates matter little because the only ones with say over what will inhabit the building next are Fred Meyer executives.

Thirteen public commenters spoke at the April 10 Palmer City Council meeting. The Council eventually voted to exercise what little power it has in the matter, postponing their vote on the noise permit required for a gun range inside the city limits, which is what Valkyrie wants to do with the old building. Many more members of the public are expected to voice their opinions on April 24, just as members of the Council had hoped. Only one public commenter came to speak at the joint meeting between the Palmer Planning and Zoning Commission and the Palmer City Council on Tuesday, April 17.

Richard Stryken says he has invested over 20 million dollars of his own money or money he has borrowed into the city of Palmer. Stryken had submitted a proposal to Kroger on September 14 and was told to expect a decision by Jan 1 of 2018. No offer has been accepted and new businesses have come in to make their play, leaving Stryken wondering what say does the city of Palmer have over the most desirable property inside its limits.

“It’s very surprising to me that they would not try to have controlled it better.

From my standpoint, I’ve invested over 20 million dollars in Palmer over that time frame. That’s not anybody's money, that's personal money that I borrowed or invested in our town. I was there when the buildings were run down and have done all these projects trying to make our town better,” said Stryken.

Stryken was born and raised in Alaska and has lived in the Valley since 1984. His proposal was to turn the old building into a version of the Tikahtnu Commons in Anchorage, filling it with different services and businesses not available in Palmer and not in competition with Fred Meyer so that each had its own storefront. Though specific names of businesses are kept confidential, Stryken claims that 90 percent of the spaces he had available had businesses committed to moving in. Stryken was partnered with JL Properties, the largest developer in the state, as well as Howdie and Cruz construction. Stryken also had plans to erect a 60-unit hotel in what is currently the vast, empty parking lot filled with leftover snow piles and dust.

“They have this whole thing about working with the community and that in this process has no merit and it’s really about the bottom-line dollar. And in that lies the problem; it’s not responsible development; it’s not helping the community; it’s not creating something we can be proud of,” said Stryken.

Stryken’s proposal, he said, had approved financing, committed businesses, and followed the guidelines of Kroger as not to interfere with the current Fred Meyer location across the street. He wants to make each of the four walls of the building to look like the front of a store, with different services available to strengthen the core of downtown Palmer, a city in which his company has already overseen more than 17 projects. Stryken has been developing properties all over Palmer for the better part of this century, orchestrating commercial subdivisions, general commercial lots, renovations and new buildings. He says he has never run into a problem such as Valkyrie is dealing with right now because he knows what the property is zoned before he starts developing. Valkyrie plans to install a state-of-the- art gun range with an apparel and gun shop and the ability to manufacture Alaskan-made guns, the first facility of it’s kind according to Larry Clark, in the 66,000 square foot building. Valkyrie plans to spend two years and more than 10 million dollars renovating the facility to their liking, and go above and beyond NRA safety standards for the shooting ranges, even employing extra Range Safety Officers.

The offers submitted by U-Haul and Valkyrie were submitted back-to-back. Clark claims that the 60-day window on the U-Haul offer would expire by the time the April 24 meeting comes around. Neither Uhaul nor Fred Meyer returned calls for comment. The main question Stryken has is, ‘why doesn’t the city get more involved?’

With such a crucial building in the heart of downtown sitting vacant for 13 months, there have been no shortage of good suggestions to help improve the city. There has been a shortage of business people willing to make an offer, however. Stryken submitted his offer in mid-September and waited to hear back from Kroger. He was told to have his last, best offer ready by the end of 2017 and only recently heard that the building had not sold yet when he received a text from a friend telling him he wished he was still in the running. Stryken says both U-Haul and Valkyrie were offered sit-down meetings with Fred Meyer, while his group was not.

Stryken, like others who have offered comment publicly, sees the industrial — not commercial — district as the correctly zoned place for a business such as U-Haul or Valkyrie.

“We have a place that’s called industrial zoning that’s where they should be,” said Stryken. “Not in the core of our town where we could actually create a synergy with new businesses and new things and that’s going to generate and motivate to build a new 60 unit hotel and we desperately need that in Palmer.”

The Palmer City Council will meet Tuesday, April 24 at 7:00 p.m. at Palmer City Hall.